The McKettricks

“A gun, señorita?”

“Yes, Raul,” Lorelei said, waxing impatient. “A gun.”

Raul began to pace, waving his arms and ranting in Spanish.

Lorelei consulted her bodice watch. “I guess we’d better get back to town,” she said. “I have to meet with Mr. Sexton, at the bank, and we must order supplies.” She assessed the sky, which was blue as Angelina’s favorite sugar bowl. “What we need is a tent. Just until the house is habitable. You don’t think it will rain in the next few days, do you?”

Raul stopped his pacing and raving and let his hands fall to his sides. “Sí,” he said hopefully. “There are dark clouds—there in the west.”

Lorelei turned. Sure enough, there were.

“All the more reason to invest in a tent,” she said.

Raul lapsed into Spanish again. Since she suspected he was cursing, Lorelei did not attempt to translate. She made for the wagon, her strides long and purposeful, and Raul had no choice but to follow.

He helped her back into the wagon box, then climbed up beside her, breathing hard, his thin shoulders stooped with defeat.

“We must have chickens, too, of course,” Lorelei said, scrabbling through her bag for a pencil stub and something to write on. “We can probably eat fish from the creek, and a fifty-pound bag of beans would do nicely for provisions. Angelina can do marvelous things with beans.”

The wagon jostled into motion.

“Chickens,” Raul fretted. “Beans.”

Lorelei concentrated on her list. “Coffee,” she said. “And sugar. Flour and yeast—”

Somewhere in the distance, thunder rumbled.

Lorelei paid it no mind.

What was a little rain?

THEY FOUND Melina Garcia in back of the Parkinson’s rambling log ranch house bent over a tub of hot water, clasping what looked like a shirt in both hands and scrubbing it against a washboard. She was a little bit of a thing, by Holt’s measure, anchored to the earth only by the jutting weight of her lower belly. Her dark hair was twisted into a knot at the nape of her neck and coming loose from its pins, and her brown face gleamed with sweat.

She’d watched them approach, and there was no welcome in her eyes.

“A good day to you, Melina,” the Captain said, resettling his hat.

She spared him an unfriendly nod and left off the washing to set her hands on her hips and look Holt over good. From her expression, he’d have said she found him somewhat short of spectacular.

Holt dismounted, hung his hat on his saddle horn and took a step toward her.

“I’ve met this old coyote once or twice,” she said, with a terse nod in the Captain’s direction, “but who the devil are you?”

Wisely, Holt stopped in his tracks, folded his arms to show he meant no harm and answered her query with his full name.

She mirrored his stance, but there was no promise of peace in her posture or in her face. She was expecting trouble, that was clear. Either she had good instincts where impending misfortune was concerned, or she’d had a lot of experience in that area.

Holt figured it was probably a little of both.

Her dark eyes flashed with wary temper. “What do you want?”

“I’m here to bring you word about Gabe Navarro.”

She stiffened, and he glimpsed a shadow of fear behind her facade, but it was quickly displaced by a wintry fury. She spat fiercely into the hard, hot dirt.

“He’s alive,” Holt felt compelled to say.

“Maybe not for long,” the Captain put in. He hadn’t bothered to get off his horse.

Melina’s eyes widened, and her gaze flickered from Holt to the Captain and back again. “What’s happened?” she asked. She was interested, all right, but she didn’t seem to want anyone to know it.

Holt reached into his pocket, brought out the five twenty-dollar bills he’d threatened and cajoled out of Gabe’s jailer. Extended them. “He sent you this.”

She hesitated, then stepped forward and snatched the bills from his hand. After looking around, she tucked them into the pocket of her apron and patted them, as if to make sure they stayed put. “He’s in trouble,” she surmised.

Holt nodded, rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. “Yes, indeed,” he said. “He’s in jail in San Antonio, sentenced to hang on the first of October.”

Melina reached out, grasped the handle of the water pump to steady herself. Her other hand flew to her belly, as if to protect the babe she was carrying. “That’s impossible.”

“I’m afraid it ain’t,” the Captain said. He took a tin of tobacco and some papers from his shirt pocket and proceeded to roll himself a smoke, still without dismounting.

“Holt here tells me the charges are murder and horse thieving. This is serious business, Melina.”

A middle-aged woman came out of the house to stand on the porch, watching them, shading her eyes from the relentless Texas sun with one hand. “Melina?” she called. “Is everything all right?”

Melina didn’t so much as glance in that direction. “No, ma’am,” she answered, raising her voice just far enough to cover the distance.

The woman, probably Mrs. Parkinson, stepped tentatively off the porch and started toward them. Like Melina, she was clad in practical calico, but she looked a sight cooler. “Who are these men?” she wanted to know.

“Holt McKettrick,” Holt said, with a slight inclination of his head. “And this is Captain Jack Walton.”

The Captain troubled himself to tug at the brim of his dusty hat. “Mrs. Parkinson,” he said politely.

“You,” she said, looking up at Walton and lining up shoulder to shoulder with Melina. In that moment, Holt decided he liked the woman. She was obviously nervous of strangers, and with good reason given the state of affairs in modern Texas. It seemed there were no men around to protect her if things should take an ugly turn, but she was willing to stand toe-to-toe with whatever came. “If you came here looking to collect some bounty, you can just ride on out right now. All our men are honest.”

Captain Jack leaned forward, resting on arm on the pommel of his saddle, and smiled. “I’ve got no business with any of your men, Mrs. Parkinson. I just came along with my friend, Holt, here, to bring Melina some news.”

Mrs. Parkinson looked down at Melina. “What kind of news?”

Melina didn’t turn her head. She was still watching Holt, with an occasional glance at the Captain. “I’ve got to go to San Antonio,” she said.

“Gabe doesn’t want you to do that,” Holt said, though he’d already guessed there was little hope of convincing her.

“I’ll get my things,” Melina said.

“Melina,” Mrs. Parkinson protested. “You can’t just leave! How will I get the washing done?”

At last, Gabe’s woman faced the boss lady. “I’m sorry about the washing,” she said directly, “but I still have to go.”

“But the baby—what will you do in San Antonio? How will you live?”

“I’ll see that she’s taken care of,” Holt said, for Melina’s benefit more than Mrs. Parkinson’s. “I have friends she can stay with.”

Melina studied him, evidently weighing his words for truth, and must have decided in his favor, for she picked up her skirts and made for the house at a good clip.

Mrs. Parkinson watched her go, probably struggling with the realization that she couldn’t stop Melina from leaving. Resignation slackened her shoulders as she turned her attention on Holt and the Captain. “I don’t like trusting that child to strangers,” she said.

“I do not qualify as a stranger, Mrs. Parkinson,” the Captain said. He got off his horse at long last, gathered the reins and led the animal to the water trough. Holt’s Appaloosa followed along on its own. “And Mr. McKettrick here is a gentleman. I can assure you of that.”

Mrs. Parkinson looked as though she’d like to haul off and spit, the way Melina had, but in the end she refrained and made for the house.

“That woman doesn’t think very highly of you, Cap’n,” Holt observed, worrying that in his mind the way he kept worrying the sight of that corpse strapped to a board on the main street of town. “Why is that?”

The Captain went to the pump, brought up some water and splashed his face and the back of his neck thoroughly. “I reckon it’s because we used to be married,” he said.

CHAPTER 12

LORELEI WATCHED from her bedroom window as the judge climbed into the buggy Raul had hitched up for him, the way he did every weekday morning and most Saturdays, took up the reins and set out for the main part of town. He would not return home until late in the day, as he had court cases to hear.

Once he’d rounded the corner onto the road that ran alongside the river curling through town, she sprang into action.

Kneeling, she pulled out the valise she’d packed the night before from under the bed. A rap at her door startled her so that she nearly choked on an indrawn breath, but she recovered quickly. “Angelina?”

The door opened, and the housekeeper stood on the threshold. Her eyes traveled to the valise, while Lorelei scrambled to her feet.

“You are really going to do this,” Angelina marveled.

“Yes,” Lorelei said firmly.

“Mr. Sexton, from the bank, will be waiting on the courthouse steps to tell the judge what you’re planning. And he will put a stop to it.”

Lorelei hoisted the valise in one hand, reflecting upon her interview with Mr. Sexton the afternoon before. She’d gone directly to the bank, after her visit to the property, and he’d been pleased to see her—until she’d made it clear that she had no intention of signing her inheritance over to Mr. Templeton.

“I would like to see my account,” Lorelei had said, standing her ground.

“The judge has strictly forbidden—”

“I don’t care what the judge has forbidden,” she’d interrupted.

Sexton had sighed, rummaged until he found the proper ledger and licked a fingertip before flipping through the pages.

“You have two thousand, seven-hundred and twenty-two dollars and seventy-eight cents,” he’d said, with the utmost reluctance.

Lorelei, peering over his shoulder, had already deduced that. She’d blinked at the sum, then her gaze had shifted to the debit column. Judging by the long list of tidy figures, her father had made regular withdrawals over the past ten years.

“I’m afraid I must insist that Judge Fellows’s wishes be respected,” Sexton had said, closing the book. His jowls were flushed, his eyes skittish.

Lorelei had insisted that the funds be moved to another account, and when Sexton balked, she threatened to fetch the constable. At last, he’d relented, but with the greatest reluctance.

She’d narrowed her eyes at him as she prepared to leave the bank with a purseful of cash and move on to the mercantile. “If you run to my father,” she’d warned, “I’ll move every cent to another bank and have you audited.”

Now, facing Angelina as she was about to leave her bedroom and the house as well, perhaps for the very last time, Lorelei, having recounted the conversation to the older woman, shook her head. “He wouldn’t dare go to my father,” she said.

“Mr. Sexton is afraid of the judge, like almost everyone else in San Antonio,” Angelina maintained, a bit frantically, but she stepped aside to let Lorelei pass into the corridor. “If you had any sense at all, you would be, too.”

“It’s my land, and my money,” Lorelei maintained, starting down the rear stairway. “Are you and Raul coming with me or not?”

Angelina crossed herself, but she nodded. “My cousin Rosa is coming to look after the judge,” she said. “Still—”

Lorelei opened the back door and peered toward the carriage house. “Where is Raul?” she fretted. “Mr. Wilkins promised to deliver my order by noon. We have to be there to meet the wagons.”

Mr. Wilkins, as it happened, was not among the judge’s many admirers. He’d been a vocal supporter of the other candidate during the last election and had written several letters to the editor of the local newspaper complaining about the decisions Judge Fellows had handed down. The merchant had been suspicious at first, then pleased to keep quiet about the wagonload of provisions and supplies Lorelei had purchased and paid for on the spot.

Raul came out of the carriage house, driving the buckboard. Even from a distance, his lack of enthusiasm was readily apparent.

Lorelei felt a pang. Her father was a difficult man, but he was aging and perhaps even ill. He could get along without her just fine, but losing Angelina and Raul would be a blow.

“If you want to stay here and look after Father,” she said, “I’ll understand.”

Angelina dragged a valise of her own from its hiding place in the pantry. “And let you go off alone, to live in the wilderness, with wolves and savages and outlaws and the Madre only knows what else? No. Rosa and her Miguel will take our places.”

“I promise you will not regret this,” Lorelei said, well aware that the statement was a rash one. Once the judge realized she’d not only taken her funds out of his keeping but helped herself to his housekeeper and handyman, he would be enraged.

Angelina looked doubtful but resolved. “I think I already regret it,” she said. Raul came to the door, looking woebegone, and claimed both the valises. “By all the saints and angels, when your father learns of this, the ground will shake.”

As if to lend credence to Angelina’s words, thunder clapped in the near distance. The horses nickered and tossed their heads, and Lorelei looked up at the sky as she descended the back steps. Fast-moving gray clouds were gathering over San Antonio, churning with mayhem.

Angelina looked up as well and opened her mouth to speak, but at the look Lorelei gave her, she held her tongue.

Raul helped his wife onto the wagon seat, then Lorelei, before climbing up to take the reins.

“Cheer up,” Lorelei said. “This is a new beginning.”

Five minutes later, the rain began.

MELINA STARED mutely at the gallows, a raw wood structure, half-finished, shimmering in the heavy rain. She was soaked to the skin, as was Holt himself, and the Captain, but she seemed oblivious to everything but the mechanism where Gabe was slated to hang.

She’d ridden behind Holt all the way down from Waco and refused to stop at the Cavanagh place to rest, put on dry clothes and wait for the rain to let up. Watching her now, Holt wished he’d taken her there anyway.

She shivered in the downpour, hair dangling in wet strands down the sides of her face, looking bedraggled and small in Holt’s coat.

Still mounted, the Captain lifted the collar of his canvas duster. “Warm as bathwater,” he said of the rain, his voice pitched low. “Just the same, we’d best get that woman someplace dry.”

Holt swung a leg over the Appaloosa’s neck and jumped to the ground. He said her name quietly, reached out to lay a hand on her slight shoulder.

She shrugged him off. “I want to see Gabe,” she said. “Right now.”

“There he is,” the Captain said. “That window, yonder.”

Both Holt and Melina looked up. Sure enough, Gabe was gazing down at them, his face like chiseled stone, his hands grasping the bars.

Melina took a step toward him, staggered a little.

Reaching out, Holt caught hold of her arm.

“Where is the way in?” Melina wanted to know.

“Tomorrow,” Holt reasoned.

She shook her head, and water flew from the thick tendrils of hair. “Now,” she said, laying both hands on her belly.

“Might as well show her inside,” the Captain said. “If you don’t, we’ll be at this all day.”

The old man was right. Melina was already prowling back and forth like a caged cat, and she looked as though she’d climb the drain pipe if that was what she had to do to get to Gabe.

Holt took her arm, and this time he didn’t let her pull away. Gabe stared down from his cell, looking as if he might chew his way past those bars and jump two stories to the ground. “This way,” Holt said.

“I’ll tend to the horses and then join you,” the Captain said, leaning from the saddle to catch hold of the Appaloosa’s reins. “After that, I’d accept a drink if you’re offering one.”

Holt merely nodded.

The Captain set out on his errand, and Holt squired Melina into the courthouse and up the stairs to the jail.

“No women allowed,” announced old Roy, sitting in a corner next to the window, watching the rain and whittling.

Holt ignored him. Took the keys down off the hook next to the inside door.

“Wait just a minute,” Roy protested. “Didn’t you hear what I said?”

“I heard,” Holt replied, working the lock and then putting the keys back in their place. “I just don’t give a damn.”

Melina streaked through the opening, and Holt followed.

“I could send for the marshal!” Roy called after them.

“He’s just downstairs, testifying in Judge Fellows’s courtroom.”

“You do that,” Holt replied, quickening his pace to catch up with Melina.

She strode past the other cells as if she knew exactly where Gabe was—and maybe she did.

Gabe was waiting at the front of his cell. “I told you I wanted her to stay in Waco!” he hissed, glaring at Holt.

“Maybe you should have told her,” Holt retorted.

“Why didn’t you send word, Gabe?” Melina asked, getting as close to the bars as she could with that stomach of hers. Holt could still feel it pressing against his back, during the long ride from Waco. “I did send word,” Gabe answered. His voice was harsh, but his eyes consumed Melina, and he reached through the bars to lay a hand to her cheek. “Jesus, Mary and Joseph, Melina, you shouldn’t have come here.”

“How could I stay away?” she demanded, covering his hand with her own.

“I’ll see if the Cap’n’s back from the livery stable,” Holt said, turning to go.

Gabe drew in a sharp breath. “The Cap’n? He’s with you?”

“I ran into him in Waco. He’s getting the horses some water and feed. He’ll be in for a word once you and Melina are through talking.”

Gabe nodded. “Did you ask him about Frank? Has the Cap’n seen him, or heard anything?”

Holt had broached the subject to Walton on the way out to the Parkinson place. Now, he shook his head. “He’s got no more idea where Corrales is than we do.”

A ruckus started up out in the front office, and Holt figured the Captain had completed the horse business. He backtracked with some haste, for fear Walton would lose patience with old Roy and get them all thrown in jail.

Sure enough, the Captain had the other man by the shirt collar, slammed up against the wall. Roy’s eyes were bugging out and he was sputtering, his wind cut off by Captain Jack’s grip.

“Let him go,” Holt said, without particular urgency.

“You left that star behind in Waco, remember?”

With a flourish, the Captain released the jailer and watched with interest as he struggled for breath.

“We got rules around here!” Roy wailed. “And you can’t just go around chokin’ folks!”

“The hell I can’t,” the Captain said. “You got any whiskey in this place?”

CHAPTER 13

THE FREIGHT WAGON had already arrived when Lorelei, Angelina and Raul got to the ranch, and it was stuck up to its axels in mud. Raul drew the buckboard up alongside and leaped down.

“I put the load inside that old house there!” the driver shouted, in an effort to be heard over the torrent. “Help me unhitch this team.”

Raul nodded, and Angelina and Lorelei climbed down on their own. Lorelei would have stayed with the men, but Angelina took her arm and dragged her out of the rain.

“It’s an omen,” the older woman said, with conviction, when they stood under the relative shelter of the leaking roof.

Lorelei bent to open the rusted door of the woodstove, and it creaked on its hinges. “Is that a mouse’s nest?” she asked, peering inside.

“Madre de Dios,” said Angelina.

Lorelei shut the stove and turned to survey the piles of provisions, mostly in crates stacked helter-skelter around the room. She picked up a shiny new ax and tested its heft, then set it carefully in a corner. “We won’t need a fire, anyway. It’s hot as the far corner of Hades, even with this rain.”

Angelina went to the door, probably watching for Raul.

Lorelei bent over the tent pole, thinking it was the size of a ship’s mast, and wondered if the canvas could be unwrapped and draped over the roof. Then she picked through the crates until she found the shiny new coffeepot. It was good-sized, for she expected to entertain as soon as she was settled. And the ranch hands—once she hired them and bought some cattle—would want their coffee.

“We’ll have to have a fire after all,” she said, starting for the door.

Angelina turned to look at her. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“Why, to set the pot in the rain,” Lorelei said, surprised.

Angelina opened her mouth, closed it again, and went out to join Raul and the driver, who were hobbling the horses.

Lorelei centered the pot in the middle of the dooryard, pleased with the prospect of hot coffee, and went back inside. Purposefully, she emptied a crate, splintered it into manageable pieces with the ax and poked uncertainly at the mouse’s nest. Nothing scurried or squeaked, so she assumed it was abandoned.

She had a nice blaze going when Angelina returned and let out a little shriek.

“Lorelei,” she cried, rushing over and tugging open the stove door. “The chimney!”

Lorelei frowned, assessing the crooked metal pipe disappearing through the roof. Smoke began to billow out through the opening in the stove and seep through heretofore invisible gaps in the pipe.

“For heaven’s sake,” she marveled.

Angelina stabbed at the fire with the handle of Lorelei’s brand-new broom, chattering in Spanish. “Water,” she coughed. “Get me some water!”

Lorelei hesitated, confused, then dashed outside to get the coffeepot, already half-full of rain. She handed it to Angelina, who promptly flung the contents into the stove. There was a puny sizzle, and then Angelina straightened, shutting the squeaky little door against the smoke.

“From now on,” Angelina said evenly, “I will make the coffee.”

Lorelei snatched up a blanket and waved it, but the smoke met the veil of rain at the door and rolled back inside.

Thunder shook the roof.

“A bad omen,” Angelina reiterated, crossing herself.

“Nonsense,” Lorelei said, reclaiming the broom. “With a little straightening up, this house will be cozy.”

Raul came inside, followed by the driver. Both of them were drenched, but then so were Lorelei and Angelina.

“I smell smoke,” said the driver.

They all sat down on crates and stared at each other.

“I believe I’ll ride one of them horses back to town,” the freight man said presently. “Plenty of other mounts, if you all want to go along.”

Raul looked longingly toward the door.

“I’m staying right here,” said Lorelei.

“That’s your privilege, ma’am,” the fellow answered, rising from his crate. Raul stared down at his hands, and Angelina shook out her skirts.

The driver took his leave, and Lorelei rose to watch him go. He mounted one of the four horses, abandoning his wagon, and set out for San Antonio. The remaining three followed along, without benefit of a lead rope.

“He would have been much wiser to spend the night,” she observed. “He could be struck by lightning along that road, and, anyway, he’ll have to come back to get his wagon.”

Neither Angelina nor Raul spoke, or even looked in her direction.

It was up to her, Lorelei decided, to set a cheerful tone. “Raul,” she said, bending to pick up the coffeepot Angelina had dropped after putting out the flames. “Perhaps you could make a bonfire in that copse of oak trees next to the water. We’ll need one for cooking.”

Raul looked at her as though she’d just risen from the dead.

“A bonfire?” he echoed.

Angelina sighed. “Just do it,” she said forlornly.