The Taming of Shaw MacCade

by Judith E. French

  That spring day had started out mild, then clouded over. By late afternoon, the prairie wind was raw, and the air smelled of snow. It was the kind of Missouri weather that had meant disaster for many an unwary settler when a late blizzard caught them unawares.

  Becca had been all too conscious of the change in temperature, and she'd grinned in relief when he'd offered to take her most of the way to Angel Crossing. He'd offered her a hand, and she'd scrambled up behind his saddle, all the while talking a blue streak. He hadn't minded her constant chatter the way he did his sisters' silly babbling, because when he had something important to say, she'd be still and listen to him.

  Becca had a lot to tell him, because it had been a few weeks since they'd seen each other. But they'd not ridden more than a mile before they ran into her pappy, Campbell Raeburn, on his way to pick her up. And the frightened look on Becca's face when she'd seen her father coming was the same expression he'd seen today.

  Getting caught together had cost them both a licking. Not only had Becca's father punished her severely, but he'd made certain word got to the MacCades. And the whipping he'd got from his pap had made him sleep on his belly for weeks.

  "You stay clear of them damned Raeburns," his father had warned. "And stay away from that li'l gal! You hear me?" he'd admonished with every whack of his belt.

  Shaw had heard well enough, but it hadn't changed things between him and Becca. Telling him not to do something was like striking a match to dry tinder and telling it not to burn. He and Becca had remained friends for years, until she'd changed from a kid into a woman. That's when his feelings for her had gotten hard to figure out.

  Like as not, Pap had been right. Put Raeburns and MacCades together, and you got trouble. Thinking he could come home without dealing with his feelings for Becca was probably as foolish as his hoping that peace between the feuding families had held in the years he'd been gone from here.

  * * *

  Halfway back home, he met Bruce, three of his brothers, and two hired hands, all armed to the teeth and riding toward Angel Crossing to back up whatever he'd meant to do. It had taken some fast talking to convince them that everything was all right and that they should turn back to give him a chance to be reunited with his mother and the rest of the family.

  His welcome couldn't have been better. His mother cried, and his brothers and brother-in-law slapped his back and shook his hand over and over while his nieces and nephews peered at him shyly. Even his older brother Will seemed glad to see him, and he and Will had never been on the best of terms. His father, and brothers Tom and Payton, hadn't returned from their cattle buying, but that didn't slow preparations for a celebration.

  Ma ordered the boys to kill a young pig, and they'd roasted it over a pit of coals until the juice ran and sizzled; the smells were enough to make a fence post hungry. Will passed the jug, and Leslie and Payton brought out their fiddles. Before long, even Shaw's nieces and nephews were joining in the dancing. His sisters and sisters-in-law kept bringing out bowls and platters of food until the tables groaned under the weight of his favorite dishes.

  "Everyone thought you were dead," his mother repeated for the third or fourth time. "They told me you died in a landslide, but I never believed it." Tears streaked her full cheeks and reddened her eyes. His mother was a tall woman, broad shouldered and sturdy. Her fair hair was heavily streaked with gray, but she still looked younger than her years, and few would guess that she'd given birth to twelve children. Shaw could well understand how at seventeen, when she'd married Murdoch MacCade back in North Carolina, she'd been called "the Rose of Watauga County."

  The frolic went on all afternoon and into the evening. As darkness fell, the dancing spilled out onto the hard-packed ground between the tavern and the main houses, and the liquor flowed faster. His mother had hung a Closed sign on the door of the public room, but that didn't stop the visitors from stepping down from their horses and joining the fun. The two passing mule skinners, a would-be prospector, and a traveling dry-goods salesman had simply blended into the family and were freely partaking of food and drink.

  But despite his joy in seeing his family and being home after so long away, Shaw couldn't get Becca's homecoming reception out of his head. He and Becca couldn't help the bad blood between the families, and there was nothing to be done about the generations of feuding, but he didn't know what had turned her to hating him.

  Naturally, she'd be angry about his confronting her father the way he had this afternoon, but that had had to be done. When she stopped and thought it over, she'd realize that demanding answers was the only way.

  As for Laird, losing him was enough to break his heart. For the others, even his family, his brother had been dead for nearly four years. For him, it had been only hours.

  He tried to laugh and swap stories with his brothers, and he tried to answer his sister's questions about the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. He accepted the platefuls of food his mother pushed on him, but everything he put in his mouth tasted like sawdust. Finally, he took a torch, slipped away from the rowdy crowd, and walked through the orchard to the small, stone-walled graveyard.

  Two tombstones stood apart from the other wooden markers. His mouth dry, Shaw knelt by the first one and held the light to read the name carved deeply into the polished surface.

  Shaw J. MacCade Beloved Son of Murdoch and Fiona MacCade April 2, 1824-August 1848

  "A waste of good money, wasn't it, Son?" a deep voice rumbled from behind him.

  Shaw turned to see his father's massive figure looming behind him. "Pap?"

  "You run off from the family. Let us think you were kilt."

  Ignoring his first instinct, Shaw moved to embrace his father. Murdoch's meaty fist connected squarely with his jaw, rocking him backward and nearly senseless.

  "Pap?"

  With a roar that would have done justice to a grizzly bear, Murdoch rushed forward and crushed Shaw to his chest. "Damn it to hell, boy," he rasped. "We thought you was lost."

  Payton's uncontrolled peal of glee pierced Shaw's stupor while his father continued to hug him hard enough to threaten the soundness of his ribs. "You sure walked into that one," Payton jeered. "Howdy, Pap. Wham!"

  Tom joined in the laughter. "Some welcome home, eh, Brother?"

  Shaw broke free from his father's arms and rubbed his jaw. One side of his head felt as though it had been hit with a sledgehammer, and he tasted blood in his mouth. "I'm glad to see you too, Pap," he said wryly.

  "If you think I'm paying to have the date changed on this stone, you can guess again," Murdoch declared. Then he, too, allowed himself a deep, belly chuckle. "One son lost and another found," he said. "I couldn't make a deal on those cows, but I guess the day's not a total loss after all." He touched Shaw's cheek with hard, callused fingers. "We missed you, Son," he murmured hoarsely. "You and Laird between you had more sand than all the rest of these spineless brothers of yours put together. There's no bringing Laird back from the grave, but with you beside me, we'll finish these back-shootin' Raeburns once and for all."

  Chapter 5

  Rebecca got little sleep on the nights following Shaw's confrontation with her father. In the time since she'd been told that he was dead, she'd almost—but not quite—put his ghost to rest.

  Now, Shaw was back, and she doubted that she would ever sleep easily again. Seeing him brought back a flood of memories, and looking into those liquid eyes made her doubt everything she wanted out of life.

  She'd considered herself settled, happy except for her longing to unite Eve with the family. But Shaw blew in on an unsettling western wind and turned everything upside down.

  Even Angel Crossing had changed in the blink of an eye. Quinn, her father, and brothers began to carry weapons everywhere they went—even on routine chores to the outbuildings—and they insisted that the dogs be left loose all the time. The twins checked the stores of powder and shot while Corbett took his life savings and ordered a new five-shot Colt revolver f
rom a merchant in Saint Louis.

  Rebecca kept busy carrying westward gold seekers, immigrants, and neighbors back and forth across the river. Corbett, Welsh, and Drummond had never taken much interest in the ferry, and the current alarm gave them a good excuse to leave the work to her. Rebecca preferred the river to waiting on customers at the store or helping Pilar prepare the huge midday meals. And so long as she didn't sit still, she had no time to dwell on Shaw MacCade and the danger that rode with him.

  Several farmers and one circuit-riding Methodist preacher stopped by to pass the news that pro-slavers and abolitionists had gotten into a shooting altercation south of Saint Louis city, and that wild Shaw MacCade wasn't dead and had come back home looking for trouble. According to local gossip, old Murdoch, the leader of the MacCade clan, was tired of waiting for action on his civil suit to regain Angel Crossing and meant to take the law into his own hands.

  But in spite of Rebecca's concern, two weeks passed without incident. On Saturday, May nineteenth, Rebecca accompanied Jorgan Anderson to a potluck supper and dance at Eden Spring, a small town about fifteen miles from Angel Crossing.

  Jorgan was a bachelor who raised mules for the westward trade. Nearing forty, placid, and slow talking, the big Swedish farmer wasn't Rebecca's first choice for a prospective bridegroom. But Jorgan was not only unfailingly good-natured; he was the only man to continue to call on her in the past few years.

  It's not as though I'm swamped with beaus, Rebecca admitted to herself as she dressed for the frolic. The bad blood between the Raeburns and the MacCades combined with the rumors about Eve's disgrace had been enough to make suitors as scarce as hens' teeth. Rebecca's girlhood friends had all married and most had children, while she remained under her father's roof.

  Since she was a child, she'd known that she wanted a home of her own, a husband, and children. But other than Shaw, she'd met no man that she could imagine sharing her dreams and hopes with. And having him—if she could forgive what he'd done to Eve—would mean betraying her family and giving up everyone and everything else she held dear.

  Rebecca gave a small sigh of resignation. Shaw had made it perfectly clear to her years ago that he wasn't the marrying kind. They'd been friends when they were children and too young to realize what trouble it could cause. Now, even that bond had frayed beyond mending. The stranger wearing Shaw's face who'd come here to threaten her father's life was someone she didn't know anymore. So why was she so obsessed with him? And why had her thoughts turned to subjects no church-going woman should admit to?

  Shaw had ruined everything by coming back from the grave, even her pleasure at being asked to this dance by Jorgan. There was no logical reason why she should change her mind about wanting to go. She hadn't been to Eden Spring in several months, and she loved to dance. She knew she should be eager to visit with her old acquaintances, but she kept making excuses to herself that she was needed here at home.

  Jorgan was a hardworking man, and she knew that with a little encouragement, he would propose marriage. But seeing Shaw again had left her confused and angry. She didn't feel like dancing, let alone spending an evening listening to Jorgan explain how he'd cured one of his mules of bots.

  "Best you stay close to home," her brother Corbett agreed when she confided her reluctance to go. "With the MacCades riled up, it's safer for you right here. Besides, with those travelers staying the night, Grandma can use your help lookin' after them."

  "No such thing," Grandma insisted. "This girl stays home too much as it is. Becca should go to the dance with Anderson. Unless my mind is slippin', he still owns a hundred acres of bottomland, and he's a decent churchgoer."

  "I'm not interested in Jorgan's bottomland," Rebecca protested.

  "Pash!" Grandma scoffed. "You could do far worse for yourself than Jorgan. You want to end up a dried-out old spinster, keeping house for Noah and your father? You need a husband and young 'uns of your own."

  She rapped her son with a knitting needle to get his attention. "Campbell, you tell Becca to go on like she planned. I don't think any MacCades are comin' here. I think it's all a bunch of crazy talk."

  "Grandma's right. Bee's not getting any younger." Drum looked up from the cinch he was mending. "She'll be sportin' gray hair and warts any day now, won't she, Uncle Quinn?"

  "Didn't your pop tell you two he wanted those rotten posts replaced on the far corral? Best you get to it instead of devilin' your sister." Uncle Quinn's soft-spoken drawl gave little evidence of his fiery temper.

  But even Drum had enough sense to back off from a man who had once fought off a war party of hostile Indians single-handedly. Grinning, he punched Welsh playfully on the arm, tugged a broad-brimmed hat over his unruly hair, and headed out the door.

  "You did give Jorgan your word," her father said thoughtfully. "And a Raeburn's word is his bond, unlike some. Jorgan will look out for you. You go on and enjoy yourself."

  "And what if there's trouble while I'm gone?" Rebecca asked him.

  Her father stroked his neatly trimmed beard. "If the MacCades come down on us, one gun more or less won't make a difference. And truth tell, it would ease my heart to know you were well away from the shootin'."

  * * *

  Jorgan came for her in a high-wheeled farm wagon pulled by a team of rawboned bay mules. His older sister Dagmar, her baby daughter Annika, and two of Anna's brood rode in a mound of straw in the back, amid rolls of bedding and hampers of food. Squeezed in between them stood a large keg of pickled fish and a smaller cask of wild honey that Jorgan was taking to sell at Ben Nichols' general store in Eden Springs.

  "Hope you don't mind Dagmar's company," Jorgan said as he helped Rebecca up onto the wagon seat. "A widow with kids don't get out much. She and the boys didn't want to miss a chance to shop in town."

  Rebecca used her few words of Swedish to greet the red-cheeked Dagmar and Jorgan's nephews. The handsome boys were too shy to speak. Dagmar, despite her first marriage to an English emigrant and second marriage five years ago to Sam Hedger, a good decade her junior, had only a smattering of English. Rebecca often wondered how the jolly woman managed her household, since neither the deceased Sam nor his daughters from his first marriage knew any Swedish.

  "Better we have Dagmar with us," Jorgan continued. "For to look proper, with you and me not handfasted, and us to stay away the night from—"

  "I agree," Rebecca replied. "So as not to give the church members reason to talk." Truthfully, she was glad for Dagmar's company and that of her children. She thought the boys must be Georg and Fisk, but the older one might be Lars or even Jens. Dagmar had five sons from her two marriages, and the boys were all blond Vikings with hair as yellow as Noah's, pale blue eyes, and round, red-cheeked faces.

  "Dagmar wants to know how your brothers are," Jorgan translated. "And your grandmother? She says to tell you that Noah is so kind to bring her fresh fish from the river, and she is grateful. All the children to feed."

  "They're all well," Rebecca replied. "Thank her for me." Dagmar was a good-hearted soul who never failed to ask about the family's health. She came to the house once a month to take tea with Grandma.

  As the wagon rolled along the rough track, Jorgan, Dagmar, and the two boys kept up a constant dialogue in Swedish, leaving Rebecca free to her own thoughts.

  It was a perfect spring day. The rolling green hills, knee-high grass carpeted by masses of sweet-smelling wildflowers, and the great bowl of azure sky above were breathtaking. Any other time, Rebecca would have delighted in the wild beauty around her and the welcome break from everyday chores, but this afternoon, she couldn't tear her thoughts away from Shaw.

  Not even the new-hatched duckling smell of Dagmar's gray-eyed baby girl could keep Rebecca from reliving precious memories of Shaw. She dutifully cuddled small Annika and bounced her on her knee while Dagmar napped, but nothing could still Rebecca's unrest.

  It was all so unfair! Shaw was supposed to be dead. With him dead, she could forget what might have b
een and make a new life. But now that he was back, all the hurt and regret came crashing back.

  There, in that meadow to the west, at the spot where the grassy plains and tree line met, she and Shaw had crawled through the damp ferns to watch the birth of a buffalo calf. And just to the left, near that rise, she'd held her breath in wonder as Shaw had gotten close enough to a wild horse to toss a rope over the animal's head.

  And ahead, where the trail dipped and plunged through a rocky creek, the two of them had left their ponies to try to catch trout with their bare hands. She'd slipped and cut her foot on a sharp stone, and Shaw had packed the bleeding wound with spiderwebs and tied it up with his red kerchief. He'd promised her that if she didn't cry, he'd show her where a wolf had dug her den.

  She hadn't cried.

  And he'd never known that she and her sister had crept up and lain belly-down in the bushes watching him and his brothers skinny-dipping when she was fifteen. It had been her first hint that Shaw had grown up, and that pizzles could be objects of great interest—depending on whom they belonged to.

  Oh, Shaw, she thought. Where did it all go wrong for us?

  But she knew the answer. It had all been wrong between them from the day they'd been born. No MacCade and Raeburn could ever remain fast friends. They never had, and this time would be no different.

  Far back, so long ago that no one knew the date for certain, Red Robert, of the Clan Raeburn, had burned for the love of his neighbor's daughter, Betsy MacCade. Betsy's father had pledged her to a Gordon, but on their wedding day, Red Robert came riding to the church on a great black horse and stole the bride away.

  The MacCades and the Gordons pursued the couple into the Highlands, and in the ensuing battle, both Red Robert and the unhappy bridegroom were killed. Nine months later, Betsy gave birth to a Raeburn child. Mad with grief and shame, she called Red Robert's mother, Annie, and his young sisters to come unarmed and without their menfolk to claim the infant boy.