With considerable trepidation Kate watched the men ride away. Surely if they kept their distance and didn’t stop, they’d be safe. She found her rosary again and held it tight.
* * *
The riders did stop. After a few tries, they discovered that they couldn’t efficiently toss the coal oil from jugs without drawing rein and standing in the stirrups. Kate was on edge, her nerves frayed. In how much danger were her men? She had no way of knowing and that made her unease grow.
Soon the tinder-dry wagons were fired and the circle blazed like a gigantic Catherine wheel. Thick columns of black smoke rose into the air from the mesquite and sage that had been added to the blaze.
Kate sat her horse with the others and for a while they watched the conflagration. Finally she said to Frank, “We’ll let the fire burn itself out and then come back to bury the ashes of the dead.”
Frank nodded. “Not even cholera could survive that blaze.”
“I certainly hope not. We’re fighting an enemy we can’t see and it frightens me.”
Frank smiled. “You frightened, Kate? I find that hard to believe.”
“Believe it, Frank. Confront me with an enemy I can see and identify and I’ll fight tooth and nail, but disease ... well, I’m at a loss.”
“I bet a lot of doctors have said that very thing.”
After one lingering look at the circle of fire Kate said to the men around her, “We’ll head back to the ranch. I’m sure Jazmin has coffee in the pot and there’s whiskey for them that want it.”
That drew a cheer from all hands.
Kate smiled and added, “And that includes myself.”
“Hey, look at that, me hearties.”
All eyes turned to the pirate who’d spoken, a gray-haired, taciturn man known only to Kate as Jolly Jakes. She doubted that was his real name.
“Where away?” Delaney said.
Jakes pointed. “Over there, Cap’n, among the mesquite by the dead tree. See it? It looks like a younker.”
Kate put the telescope to her eye. “I don’t see anything. Maybe it was an animal.”
“Damn your eyes, Jolly,” Delaney said. “Have you been at the rum again and seeing things?”
Jakes shook his hoary head. “It’s there, Cap’n, among the mesquite. I swear to God I saw a white child moving around.”
“There’s one way to find out.” Trace kicked his horse into a gallop and headed for the dead wild oak.
Through the telescope Kate watched her son dismount and walk into the mesquite thicket. He emerged a few moments later carrying a struggling, kicking child by the armpits. Grinning, Trace lifted the kid into the saddle and got up behind him. When he returned to the others, he lowered the squalling child to the ground and said above the din, “He’s a boy and this was pinned to his . . . whatever the hell it is he’s wearing.”
Kate was too taken aback to chide Trace for swearing. She took the paper and studied it. “The writing is very small.” She reached into the pocket of her riding skirt, opened a small tortoiseshell case, and removed a pair of pince-nez spectacles. She settled the glasses on her nose and read aloud, “My name is Peter Letting and I’m three years old. My ma took me from the wagons because I don’t have the cholera. Everyone else is dead and she died holding hands with my pa. If I am found alive please take care of me. If I am dead bury me as a Christian.”
Kate removed her steamed up glasses. “It’s not signed.”
Frank said, “Give me the paper,” Kate.”
Kate handed it over. Frank thumbed a match into flame and when the paper was burning well he dropped it to the ground. “Let me have your hands, Kate.” He removed his canteen from the saddle horn and poured water over Kate’s hands and then his own. “I don’t know if that was needed, but we can’t take chances.” Nodding in the direction of the boy, he said, “What about him?”
“He’s got a locket around his neck.” She stepped out of the saddle and kneeled beside the boy. He stopped crying as soon as she put her arms around him and hugged him close.
“Kate, should you be doing that?” Frank said.
She looked at him. “He’s a frightened child who may have been wandering around for days. He’s hungry, thirsty, and dirty, and he needs affection. Let me have your canteen, Frank.”
He hesitated. “He may have gone back to the wagons. Have you thought about that?”
“Yes, I have, and that’s a chance I’ll have to take.” Kate said. “Would you have me abandon him out here? I’m surprised he’s still alive. This boy is a survivor. I can see it in his eyes. He’s brave, Frank, very brave.”
“By the way he caterwauls, you could have fooled me.” Frank dismounted and passed Kate his canteen. The child drank deeply and she took the opportunity to open the locket on the silver chain around the boy’s neck. She answered the question on Frank’s face. “A young man and woman. They must have been his parents.”
Frank glanced at the open locket. A bearded man and a dark-haired woman, the man unhandsome, the woman plain. Two ordinary people who died in terrible circumstances. “Well, get that dirty shift off him and we’ll take him back to the ranch and feed him.”
“His name is Peter,” Kate said.
Frank nodded. “Then Pete it is.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
Hank Lowery’s throat had been cut and a folded piece of paper had been forced between the dead man’s teeth . . . his murderer revealing a grotesque sense of humor.
Carrying Peter into the cabin from outside, Frank heard Kate’s frantic calls for Moses Rice and her girls, but he heard no answering cry, nor would there be one, as the bloodstained note explained.
THANKEE FER THE MONEY AND GRUB.
WE’LL LEAVE YOOR BRATS AND THE NIGER AT
THE ROONED MISION AT JAKE PIKE DRAW.
DON’T FOLLER OR THE BRATS DIE.
PS. WERE KEEPING THE MEX WOMAN.
Frank walked through the ransacked cabin. The tin box where Kate kept money for day-to-day ranch expenses had been forced open, emptied, and thrown on the floor. Supplies—flour, coffee, bacon, and canned goods—had been stripped from the kitchen shelves and even the peppers had been taken from the rafters.
Kate stepped around the corner of her new house, a worried-looking Barrie Delaney at her side, when she caught sight of Frank. “How is Hank?” she called when she was still a distance away.
Frank stepped closer to her and said, “Kate, Hank is dead.”
Disbelief and then horror crossed her face. She brushed past Frank, hiked up her dress, and ran for the cabin. Frank gave her a few moments and then followed her inside.
She stood at Lowery’s bedside, pale like a woman formed from alabaster. She stretched out a hand and pushed an errant strand of hair off the dead man’s forehead. Blood had stained his pillow scarlet and his hands were cut, slashed to ribbons as he’d tried to defend himself.
“This was on the table,” Frank said, a lie to save Kate from further horror. He handed her the note.
She read it slowly, and then it read again. When she looked up again her beautiful green eyes were as cold as winter. “Who—did—this—Frank?” she said with a pause between each word, her voice sounding like a death knell.
“I don’t know,” Frank said.
“We’ll find whoever did it and kill him,” Kate said.
A yell of protest from outside was followed by Delaney’s harsh order to “Shut the hell up!” Then Hargate Webbe was hurled headlong through the open bedroom door.
Delaney was right behind him. “Caught this scurvy swab skulking among the trees.” His eyes moved to the dead man. “Lord have mercy on us. Kate, what happened?”
“Hank Lowery was murdered,” she said.
Delaney removed his hat. “Poor gentleman. May the Good Lord rest his soul.” He drew his cutlass and brandished it murderously in Webbe’s face. “By God, if you had anything to do with this, I’ll cut you into collops.”
“I wasn’t skulking. I was hiding,” Webbe said.
Kate said, “Let us respect the dead by stepping outside. Mr. Webbe, you will explain yourself to my satisfaction or I’ll hang you.”
Webbe was a thoroughly frightened man when Delaney dragged him away from the cabin and threw him on the ground.
“Who took the two young girls and the black man? And where is Jazmin, as fair a filly as ever trod the earth and a fine cook to boot? Where are they, Webbe? Tell me or I’ll cut your heart out.”
“I told you, I don’t know,” Webbe said, looking miserable. “All I can say is that afterward they headed south.”
Frank said, “Webbe, get a grip of yourself and then tell us what happened.”
Webbe took a deep breath and steadied himself. “In my spare time I’m something of an entomologist—”
“I knew it,” Delaney bellowed. “There’s treachery for you. He’s an ento . . . enta . . . whatever the hell he says he is. It sounds like he’s aboard with some heathen, murdering crew o’ scallywags to me.”
“It means I collect butterflies and moths,” Webbe said.
Kate said, “Quickly, Mr. Webbe. There’s no time to be lost. What happened here?”
“I saw a fine specimen of Vanessa cardui—Painted Lady—among the oaks and went after it, hoping to add it to my collection. No sooner had I begun my hunt when I heard rough men yelling and then gunshots.”
Kate said, “My daughters!”
“They were not harmed, dear lady,” Webbe said. “The miscreants shot into the air. Unfortunately, Moses did not have his pistol with him and could not make a fight of it.”
“How many were there?” Frank said.
“Four, four of them.”
“Then I’m glad Mose didn’t have his pistol,” Frank said. “Describe these men.”
“Big men, dressed in buckskins,” Webbe said. “They had red hair to their shoulders and beards down their chests. That’s all I saw or cared to see. I hid in the brush until you and Mrs. Kerrigan arrived.”
“Sounds like the Garvan boys,” Frank said.
“Who are they?” Kate said.
“Four outlaw brothers spawned in hell, Kate. As I recall, their names are Merrill, Jud, Andy, and the oldest brother is Josiah, the worst of them. Merrill is the fastest with a gun, but Josiah does deadly work with the knife. A couple years ago up in the Indian Territory, he fought a duel with a cavalry sergeant over the affections of a fallen woman. They met on the pine trunk that had dropped across a creek. The sergeant was armed with a saber, but Josiah Garvan cut his heart out.”
“Oh my God,” Kate said, horrified.
“Kate, I didn’t mean to scare you,” Frank said.
“Well, you did. We’ll change horses and sack up whatever supplies the Garvan brothers left us. Captain Delaney, I want you to mount every one of your rogues who can ride a horse. We’ll meet force with force and if my daughters are harmed, I’ll hang them all from the same tree.”
One of the hands, a round-shouldered man named Dusty Bates, said to Kate, “Where are we headed, boss?”
“Frank, what’s the name of that place?”Kate said.
“The ruined mission at Jake Pike Draw. According to Webbe they headed south.”
“I know that place, camped there one time when me and another feller was hunting antelope,” Bates said. “The mission was burned by the Comanche close to a hundred years ago. All that’s left standing are parts of its mud brick walls.”
“Can you lead us there, Dusty?” Frank said.
“Sure I can.”
“Then get ready to ride,” Frank said. Then to Kate, “What about Pete?”
“Jolly Jakes had sons of his own,” Delaney said. “He’ll stay behind and take care of the tyke.”
“Make sure he feeds him,” Kate said.
“Feed and wash him and find him something to wear,” Delaney said. “Jolly has done all that before.”
“I hate to leave him,” Kate said.
“Kate, me darlin’, if you plan to raise him your own self as a Western man, then he’ll need to get used to life’s little inconveniences. You can lay to that.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
Kate Kerrigan’s home had been invaded, her children taken, and that was an outrage she’d avenge with equal savagery. As she rode out of the KK Ranch her men behind her, Kate was determined on a war to the finish. There would be no negotiation, no mercy shown . . . only the reckoning.
Barrie Delaney had brought along six of his scoundrels who could be counted on to stay on a horse during a running fight and were not averse to throat cutting if the need arose. Kate had her three toughest hands along with Frank, Trace, and Quinn, giving her a strength of thirteen fighting men. She made fourteen and thus an unlucky number of riders was avoided.
The evening was starting to crowd out the day when Dusty Bates told Kate that the ruined mission was close.
Frank scouted ahead and returned through the darkening twilight. “I saw the girls, but there’s no sign of Mose or Jazmin.”
“Could it be a trap?” Kate said.
“I don’t know. That’s why I came back. If the Garvan boys have laid an ambush, I wouldn’t last long going it alone.”
“Quite right. We’ll do this in force.” She slid her Winchester from the boot, took a green ribbon from the pocket of her coat, and tied back her hair. She wore a split canvas riding skirt, a Colt belted around her waist. There was no softness in her. She levered a round into the rifle and said, “Spread out, boys. We go in at the gallop.” Then Kate yelled her war cry—an ancient Kerrigan battle shriek from the mists of her clan’s history—and kneed her horse into motion. The others followed, galloping headlong toward the dark ruin.
* * *
Ivy and Shannon were unharmed but scared. They kneeled beside Moses Rice, who’d been badly beaten. Kate joined them there.
Moses’s face was bruised and cut, and the shirt had been torn off his back. His ribs on the left side showed signs of having been repeatedly kicked.
“Mose, can you hear me?” Kate said.
The old man nodded his gray head. “I can hear you Miz Kerrigan, but I think they done for me.”
Kate looked at Shannon. “What happened?”
“Mose tried to stop them from taking Jazmin and they beat him. Ivy and me tried to stop them, but the man with the knife told us to get away or he’d cut our hearts out.” She pulled up the sleeve of her dress and showed purple bruises. “The man with the knife grabbed me and threw me to the ground.”
Kate’s chin jutted and her eyes blazed with emerald fire, a mother wolf seeing one of her cubs mistreated. Later, Shannon would say that she’d never seen her ma look like that before and hoped she’d never see her look that way ever again.
“Miz Kerrigan, I couldn’t stop them,” Moses said. “They took Jazmin.”
“You were very brave, Mose,” Kate said. “I’m proud of you.” Frank passed her a canteen that she held to the old man’s lips.
He drank a little and then coughed. “It’s all up with me.”
“Indeed it is not. Once we get you home to the ranch, plenty of bed rest and Jazmin’s good cooking will soon get you back on your feet. How can I run the KK without you?”
“You’re very good to me, Miz Kerrigan.”
“No I’m not, Mose,” Kate said. “I take you for granted and sometimes I don’t even notice that you’re there. I won’t make those mistakes again.”
Kate unbuckled her suede coat and made a pillow for Moses’s head. Then she said to Quinn, “Stay with them until we get back . . . and keep your rifle handy.”
Quinn’s face showed his disappointment. “I’d rather ride with you and Trace, Ma.”
“I know you would, Quinn, but I want you here. If, God forbid, something happened to Trace and me, you’d be the owner
of the KK. I don’t want to put all my eggs in one basket. Do you understand?”
Frank said, “Quinn, if you see us galloping back here hell for leather with our tails between our legs, you’ll be able to put your rifle to good use. Trust me on that.”
Frank’s words helped, but as Quinn watched Kate and the others ride away from the mission into the ominous dark, he looked devastated.
* * *
The Garvan brothers made no effort to cover their tracks across the grassland that lay south of the mission. For a time, they’d taken the old Camino al Cielo wagon road that had been laid by the Conquistadors, but left it when it petered out into an overgrown barrier of prickly pear cactus and thornbush.
Frank had good tracking skills and even in the dark, he didn’t lose the hoofprints left by four horses, one of them carrying double. Around midnight, a small herd of pronghorn emerged from the gloom and crossed directly in front of Kate, startling her as she rode through the cool night with a blanket across her shoulders. The coyotes were up on the ridges talking to the rising moon and once they heard the mournful howls of a hunting pack of gray wolves in the distance. No one talked much, but Barrie Delaney hummed “Brennan on the Moor” to himself, a ballad dear to his heart since it was about an Irish highwayman caught and hanged in County Cork in 1804.
Trace’s young eyes were the first to see the red glow of a campfire staining the dark sky ahead of them and he told Frank.
Frank’s eyes squinted into the distance. “Are you sure?”
“I see it plain, Frank,” Trace said.
“I see it, too. Directly ahead of us, Frank.” Kate threw up her arm and drew rein. “Anybody else see it?”
One of the hands said, “Yeah, boss. It’s there all right. Big blaze, a white man’s fire.”
Frank caught the distant glow and estimated the distance, no easy task in the dark. A mile away. Maybe a little farther.
As always in life-and-death situations, Kate deferred to her segundo. “How do we play it, Frank?”
“Kate, you and the others stay here. I’m going to scout ahead and take a look-see.”
“Be careful, Frank,”Kate said.
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