Duff and Meagan were met by Elmer when they returned to Sky Meadow. Duff invited Meagan to spend the night, but she declined.
“I need to open on time tomorrow,” she said. “And if I start back now, I’ll be back in town before it grows dark.”
Chapter Ten
When Ina Claire went to bed that night, it was with happy memories of the Scottish games in town and eager anticipation of the days to come with her new horse, Thunder.
“Papa?” she called.
“Yes?”
“Thank you for Thunder. You are the best papa in the whole world.”
Ed chuckled. “You remember that next time I ask you to do something you don’t want to do.”
“I’ll remember,” Ina Claire promised.
Ina Claire got out of bed and walked over to the window. She could see the barn glimmering dimly in the light of the moon. Thunder was in there tonight, in a place that was new for him. She hoped he wasn’t homesick for where he was before he was brought here.
“I’m going to love you so much that you’ll never give a second thought to where you were before,” Ina Claire said, speaking quietly. The leaf of a nearby tree moved slightly in a gentle breeze and, catching a beam of moonlight, sent a sliver of silver through the night.
“Good night, Thunder.”
Turning away from the window, it was a happy Ina Claire who climbed back into her bed.
“Papa?” she called out into the night.
“Yes, darlin’?” Her father’s voice drifted down the hall to her.
“Didn’t Mr. MacCallister and Miss Parker give me some wonderful birthday gifts?”
“Yes, they did.”
“I hope they know how much I appreciated them.”
“I’m sure they do.”
“Ina Claire, sweetheart, I know you are excited,” her mother called back to her. “But you need to settle down and go to sleep now.”
“I will, Mama,” Ina Claire promised. “It’s just that this is the most wonderful day of my whole life, and I’ll never forget it.”
“It was a wonderful day,” her mother replied. “And I’m sure you will remember it forever.”
“Mama, I love you,” Ina Claire said.
“I love you, too, darlin’.”
“Papa, I love you.”
“And I love you back, sweetheart. Now, you aren’t going to yell out the window that you love Thunder, are you?”
Ina Claire chuckled. “I love you, Thunder!”
Horse Creek
“We been eatin’ nothin’ but rabbit for four days, ’n with no salt ’n no coffee to wash it down,” Manning complained.
“You got nothin’ to complain about,” Callahan said. “Me ’n you could both be lyin’ in a coffin under the ground by now.”
It had been four days since Callahan and Manning had escaped jail, and in so doing evaded the hangman’s noose. They had also managed to avoid the posse that had come for them. But neither Morris nor Cooper, who had arranged the escape, had had the foresight to bring any rations to sustain them while they were on the run.
“That’s true, but ain’t you gettin’ a little hungry for somethin’ beside rabbit cooked on a stick without nothin’ with it, not even no salt?” Manning asked, continuing his complaining.
“I know where we can get some vittles,” Cooper said.
“Where?” Callahan asked. “It ain’t like we can go into a general store and buy what we need. In the first place, we might get recognized, ’n in the second place, just in case you ain’t thought about it, we ain’t got no money. So just where do you plan to get this food you’re talkin’ about?”
“I know the place, ’n it ain’t far from here. It ain’t very far at all. You remember it, don’t you, Morris?”
“It ain’t far from here, you say?”
“It prob’ly ain’t no more ’n four, maybe five miles from here.”
For just a moment Morris was confused by the comment, then he realized what Cooper was talking about and a big smile spread across his face.
“Oh, wait a minute, yeah, I do know,” Morris said. “Yeah, I know exactly where we can go. You’re talkin’ about the cap’n, ain’t you?”
“Yeah.”
“Who, or what is this cap’n you two are talkin’ about?” Callahan asked.
“It’s a feller me ’n Morris met,” Cooper said. “We can get some food there, ’n maybe a little money. We can be there in a couple of hours, real easy.”
“That’ll be after midnight,” Manning said.
Cooper smiled. “Yeah, midnight is prob’ly about the best time to visit him.”
“He must be an awful good friend if he’s goin’ to be willin’ to give us food in the middle of the night,” Manning said.
Now it was Callahan who smiled. “You don’t understand, Manning. I don’t think this cap’n is a friend, and I don’t think he plans to give us anything.”
“Then how . . .” Manning started, but he interrupted his question in mid-sentence. “Oh, I see what you’re talkin’ about. We ain’t goin’ there for him to give us anything. We’re goin’ there to take it.”
“See there, Cooper, I told you Manning warn’t all that dumb. He’s done figured this out all by his own self,” Callahan declared.
“Yeah, I seen it right off,” Manning said, smiling as he mistook the sarcasm for a genuine compliment.
* * *
A little over two hours later the four men reined up on top of a ridge and looked down onto Little Bear Creek below them. The narrow stream of water glistened silver from the full moon overhead. Just on the other side of the creek, they saw a cluster of buildings, a barn, a bunkhouse, and a larger, white house.
“I see a bunkhouse. Are you sure there ain’t no hands here?” Manning asked.
“I’m sure,” Cooper answered. “Me ’n Morris stopped here for water just the other day. There warn’t nobody here but a man ’n woman, ’n a young girl.”
“They was real nice folks, too,” Morris said. “They not only let us have water for the horses, they also brung us into the house ’n give us dinner.”
“It don’t matter none whether they was nice or not,” Callahan said, his voice a snarl. “We got business to take care of, ’n them bein’ nice don’t have nothin’ to do with it. We need some food, and this is where we can get it. Tell me, do you think they got ’ny money here?”
“Hell, I’m sure of it,” Cooper said. “They ain’t got no hands on the place right now, ’n the reason they ain’t got nobody here is ’cause they ain’t got no cows. ’N they ain’t got no cows ’cause they just sold ’em.”
“Yeah, and I know men like him,” Morris added. “They’d rather keep the money themselves than put it in a bank. Most special when he’d either have to go all the way to Chugwater or Cheyenne in order to get to a bank.”
“Besides which, we know they got food,” Cooper said. “’N we’re goin’ to be needin’ some food if we’re goin’ to stay out on the trail for a while.”
“All right,” Callahan said. “Let’s get this done.”
“What the hell?” Cooper said. “There’s a light comin’ from one o’ the winders.”
“Maybe they left a lantern burning,” Manning suggested.
“No, they wouldn’t leave a lantern burnin’ all night.”
“What’ll we do?” Morris asked.
“I’ve got an idea,” Cooper said.
* * *
Ed couldn’t sleep. He had been promising to take Julie to Scotland ever since they had gotten married. He had gotten the idea while he was still in the army when, one night, a group of soldiers came by to serenade the officers and their ladies with the song “I’ll Take You Home Again Kathleen.” That didn’t particularly refer to Julie, she hadn’t been born in Scotland, but she had always wanted to see the homeland of her parents.
Now he had enough money saved that he could do that, and with the cattle sold, there was no reason they couldn’t leave the ranch for a period of time.
Ed began putting some figures on a piece of paper. It would take a week to go by train to New York, then ten days by steamship to England. To go there and back, they would be traveling for thirty-four days. He would buy first-class passage on the ship so that even the trip would be enjoyable. The question was, how long could they stay in Scotland?
Ed smiled. He saw no reason why they couldn’t stay for a month, which meant he would be gone from the ranch for two months. But he knew that he could arrange to put the few remaining cattle with Duff’s over on Sky Meadow. He knew, also, that he could count on Duff to keep an eye on his place while they were gone.
With the logistics of the trip figured out, his next step would be to determine just where they would go and what they would do while there. He had bought a book about Scotland, doing so in secret because when he first began contemplating the trip he wasn’t sure he would be able to do it, and he didn’t want to get Julie’s hopes up if they couldn’t. Now that he knew he could, he would find some things in the book to share with Julie and Ina Claire.
Ed was looking through the book when he thought he heard something on the front porch. He started toward the door to have a look, when he was surprised to hear a light knock. Who in the world would be paying a visit at this hour of the night?
“Yes? Who is it?” he called through the door.
“Cap’n? Cap’n Culpepper, it’s me, Dooley Cooper. Me ’n my pard stopped by a few days ago, remember?”
Ed opened the door. “Yeah, I remember. What are you doing here in the middle of the night?”
“It’s my pard, Pogue. He’s been hurt real bad, Cap’n. Could you step out here and take a look at ’im?”
“Why’d you bring him here instead of taking him to a doctor?”
“’Cause this here was the closest place. Please, just take a look at ’im, tell me what you think.”
Ed paused for a moment. He didn’t have a good feeling about this. On the other hand, if someone was hurt and he could be of some help, it wouldn’t be right for him to refuse.
“All right, I’ll take a look at him,” he said. “Where is he?”
“He’s out front here.”
As soon as Ed stepped out onto the front porch, Manning, who was waiting on one side of the door, moved up behind the rancher and wrapped his arms around him, effectively pinning Ed’s arms to his side.
“Here, what the . . .” Ed said, startled by the act. That was as far as he got before Callahan stepped up behind him from the other side of the door. Callahan grabbed a handful of Ed’s hair and jerked his head back. Then he drew his knife across Ed’s throat. Ed’s struggles ceased, and he fell to the floor.
* * *
From her bed Ina Claire heard a horse whinny, and it sounded much closer than the barn. Going to the window and raising it, she looked outside but saw nothing.
“Oh, Thunder, don’t tell me you got out,” she said quietly. “I know this all seems unfamiliar to you, but this is where you live now.”
She put on a pair of jeans and a flannel shirt, and was just pulling on her boots when she heard footsteps in the hallway. She opened the door of her bedroom.
“Papa, if it’s Thunder I’ll take care of . . .” She stopped in mid-sentence when she saw not her father but four men illuminated by the lamp one of them was carrying. By the light of the lantern, she could see the purple scar on the face of one of the men.
“Mr. Cooper!” Ina Claire called out in panic. “What are you doing in our house at this time of night?”
“Cooper, get her!” one of them shouted, pointing toward Ina Claire. The man who shouted was a big man, and in the flickering light of the candle, Claire saw that his nose was flat against his face. Because of his size, and the shape of his nose, he reminded her of an ape.
Ina Claire screamed, then slammed the door. There was no lock on the bedroom door and no way to keep anyone out. She thought of crawling under the bed but knew that would be the first place someone would look. She started toward the open window but heard the doorknob being turned. She had just gotten her jeans from the clothes hamper and quickly she climbed into it and pulled the lid down. Once inside, she pulled the clothes over her. She heard her mother’s voice.
“Who are you? Ed! Ed, where are you?”
Her mother’s words were followed by a gunshot.
“That takes care of both of them,” Ina Claire heard a gruff voice say. “What about the girl?”
Both of them? Ina Claire wasn’t sure what they were talking about, but to say both of them had an ominous sound to it. Where was her father? She stuffed a shirt into her mouth to muffle her cry.
“She slammed the door and went back inside,” another voice said.
“Morris, go in there and take care of her.”
“What the hell, Callahan? She ain’t nothin’ but a young girl; she ain’t goin’ to be a-givin’ us no trouble.”
“I’ll check on her,” another voice said, and Ina Claire held her breath as she heard someone come into her room. “Cooper, bring the lantern in here, I cain’t see nothin’.”
“Manning, look under the bed,” Cooper said. “That’s where kids always hide.”
Ina Claire heard the scruffing sound of someone getting down on the floor. “She ain’t under here.”
“Well, hell, you can see there where she went. She crawled out through the winder,” Cooper said.
Having just heard him speak a moment earlier, Ina Claire knew that this was Cooper’s voice. She knew also who at least two of the men were. They were Dooley Cooper and Pogue Morris, the same men who had stopped by the ranch a few days ago. She had also picked out two more names during their conversation, though the names meant nothing to her.
She intended to remember these names so she could tell the sheriff. That is, if she lived through the night.
“Come on, leave the girl be. Let’s look for some money ’n food.”
Ina Claire heard the footsteps of the men leaving her room, then she stayed quietly in the clothes hamper until she was sure that everyone was gone. Quietly she lifted the top of the hamper just high enough to have a good look around. She could see nothing because the room was too dark. She could, however, hear voices coming from the kitchen, and as she listened, she realized that she was hearing all four voices.
“Get the cap’n,” one of the voices said. “Take ’im back into the bedroom, then put him ’n the woman in the bed.”
“What for?”
“When they find the bodies, they’ll think that the both of ’em died in the fire.”
“What fire?”
“The fire we’re goin’ to set afore we leave here.”
Again, Ina Claire stuffed a shirt into her mouth to muffle a sob. She had expected it before, but now she was almost certain that both of her parents were dead.
Dooley Cooper, Pogue Morris, Callahan, and Manning. These were names she didn’t want to forget.
“Ten dollars?” someone said. “He ain’t got nothin’ but ten dollars?”
“Wait a minute,” another voice said. “Lookie here.”
“What’ve you got, Manning?”
“This here is a note from the bank sayin’ he just put in fifteen hundred dollars,” the one called Manning replied. “Damn, Morris, I thought you said folks like him didn’t put their money in banks.”
“Most of ’em don’t,” Morris replied. “Come on, let’s get some food ’n get outta here.”
Chapter Eleven
Positive now that there was nobody left in her bedroom, Ina Claire crawled out of the clothes hamper, walked as quietly as she could over to the window, then climbed through it. Once outside she ran across the lawn and down to the creek. She knew of an old abandoned fox den in the bank that couldn’t be seen even in the daytime, if one didn’t know where to look.
She felt tears streaming down her face, and she bit down on her shirtsleeve to keep from crying out loud. She worried about her mama and papa, and felt guilty about having run out on t
hem. But reason told her that if she stayed in the house she might have been discovered, and if discovered, the men would no doubt kill her.
She reached the old fox den but didn’t climb into it yet. She could see the four horses of the men who had killed her parents, and she knew they hadn’t left yet. She would keep her eyes on the horses until the men appeared, then she would crawl into the hole until she was sure they were gone.
“I will remember you, Dooley Cooper, Pogue Morris, Callahan, and Manning.” She said the words aloud to embed them in her memory. “I will not forget Dooley Cooper, Pogue Morris, Callahan, and Manning,” she said again.
* * *
Cooper, Morris, Callahan, and Manning were still in the house, still searching, unsuccessfully, for money.
“You know what?” Callahan said. “We’d better grab what food we can and get out of here. What if the girl comes back?”
“Ha, what if she does? Are we supposed to be afraid of her?” Morris asked.
“We don’t know where she went. She could be comin’ back with a dozen men,” Callahan suggested.
“Callahan’s right,” Cooper said. “We need to get out of here.”
“Yeah,” Callahan agreed. “But not until we’ve set the house on fire.”
* * *
From her hiding place on the bank of Little Bear Creek, Ina Claire saw the four men approaching their horses, so she climbed down into the fox den. There, she waited until she heard the sound of horses as the men left. As carefully as she could, she crawled up the side of the bank. She lay down so that even if they looked toward her they wouldn’t be able to see her, and she watched as the four men rode away.
Then she saw something else that caused her heart to leap into her throat. Flames were licking out of the kitchen window!
“Mama! Papa!” she yelled.
Getting up then, and without regard as to whether she could be seen or not, she ran back to the house and in through the front door. So far the flames were confined to the kitchen, which was in the back of the house, and none of the rest of the structure was involved. She looked into the kitchen to see if she could extinguish the fire but saw that it was too advanced, and putting it out was not an option. She had to get her parents out of the house.
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