McKettrick's Choice (6 page)

T
HERE WAS A THIRD PLACE
set at the dining room table, and the sound of masculine laughter came from behind the closed doors of the judge's study. Lorelei marched to the kitchen and pushed the door open with the flat of her hand.

“Angelina!”

The other woman was just setting a pan of biscuits in the oven. She looked back at Lorelei over one plump shoulder.
“Sí?”
she asked innocently.

“I'm having supper in my room tonight. I refuse to sit across the table from Creighton Bannings!”

Angelina smiled as she straightened, wiping her hands on her apron. “How was the Ladies' Benevolence Society meeting?”

The reminder of her summary dismissal made Lorelei flinch, but she recovered almost immediately. “I was asked to leave,” she said, setting her shoulders. “I'm thinking of starting my own group, just to spite them.”

Angelina drew herself up, indignant. “Hateful old hens,” she muttered. “I ought to make them all come down with the grippe.”

Despite the unseemly reference, Lorelei took a plate from the cupboard, planning to fill it with whatever
Angelina had made for supper and sneak up the back stairs. “Start with Mrs. Malvern,” she said lightly, then lowered her voice to a whisper and cast a glance over one shoulder as the laughter in the study swelled again. “She's Creighton's cousin, you know. She's the one who threw me out of the society.”

Angelina checked the kettle of potatoes boiling on the back of the stove, then peered into the warming oven at the platter of fried chicken. The heat in the room was almost palpable.

“Put that plate back where you found it,” Angelina said. “It isn't Bannings in there with your father. It's the banker, Mr. Sexton.”

Lorelei was both relieved and unsettled. Mr. Sexton was not the jovial sort, and neither was her father. What were they laughing about in there?

“Since when does the judge socialize with clerks?”

Angelina met her gaze. “Since today,” she said meaningfully.

Lorelei smoothed her hair, then her skirts. Sexton managed her father's accounts, as well as Lorelei's inheritance from her maternal grandfather. “I guess I'd better greet our guest,” she said.

Angelina merely nodded.

A few moments later, after straightening her hair and skirts again, Lorelei tapped circumspectly at the study door.

“Come in,” the judge called.

Lorelei took a deep breath, wondering if her father had heard about her ousting from the society, and turned the latch.

Mr. Sexton stood, tugging at his tight collar, and tried to smile. “Miss Fellows,” he said, in greeting. Her father
regarded her smugly from the chair behind that half-acre desk of his.

Lorelei summoned up a smile. “Good evening, Mr. Sexton.”

“Tell her,” urged the judge.

Sexton flushed. Whatever he'd been laughing about earlier must have been far from his mind, because he looked miserable, and not just from the cloying heat.

“It's about the property you inherited,” he said.

“What property?” Lorelei asked.

“Why, the ranch,” Sexton replied, after a quick glance at the judge. “The hundred acres downriver.” He fiddled with his collar again. “An offer of purchase has been made.”

Lorelei was confounded. She looked at her father, but his face gave away nothing, as usual. “It's mine to sell?” she asked.

The judge cleared his throat. “Not precisely. But your signature is required. Just a formality.”

“I want to see the place first.”

Her father sighed. “There is no point in that, Lorelei,” he said. “It's just an old cabin, surrounded by scrub brush and rattlesnakes.”

“Mr. Templeton is prepared to be very generous,” Sexton put in nervously, and got a quelling glare from the judge for his trouble.

“I'm sure he is,” Lorelei said, “but I'm not signing anything until I see that land with my own eyes.”

The judge pinched the bridge of his nose. “I should have known you would be difficult about this,” he said.

“Yes,” Lorelei agreed. “You should have.”

He glowered at her. “Will you excuse us for a few moments, Mr. Sexton?”

Sexton fled with such haste that Lorelei half expected to see a little cloud of dust trailing behind him. The study door closed with a crisp catch of the latch.

“Why didn't you tell me about this land?” Lorelei asked.

“You are a woman,” the judge replied wearily. “It was of no concern to you.”

“Until you decided to sell it,” Lorelei pointed out.

“The sale will provide a substantial dowry,” the judge reasoned, but with an edge of impatience in his voice.

“God knows, you'll need one to get a husband.”

“I don't want a husband.”

“You have made that quite clear. Nonetheless, my dear, you will have one.”

“Tell me about the ranch.”

Another sigh, this one long-suffering. “It belonged to your mother's family. If William had lived, the place would have gone to him. Your grandfather's will stated that, should William fail to survive, the land would be yours.”

“I'm not surprised that I wasn't consulted,” Lorelei said glumly. “After all, I
am
only a woman.” The judge would simply have appropriated the estate if he'd been able to do so, which meant there was something he wasn't telling her.

Her father hoisted himself from his chair. His lips had a bluish tinge, and there was a strange pallor to his face. “Please, Lorelei. For once in your life, do not argue with me. Mr. Sexton has brought the documents.” He shoved a pile of papers toward her without lifting them from the desktop.

Lorelei took a step toward him. “You don't look well. Perhaps I should ask Angelina to send Raul for the doctor.”

“Never mind the damn doctor!” the judge shouted, collapsing back into his chair.
“Sign the papers!”

Lorelei bit her lower lip. Sometimes, she wished she were more tractable.

“No,” she said. “Absolutely not.”

 

H
OLT RODE INTO
Waco about an hour after sunup. A freight wagon jostled by, and the driver touched his hat brim in greeting. Two prostitutes gossiped in front of the Blue Bullet Saloon, pausing to regard Holt through a haze of tobacco smoke, and a Chinaman trotted along the sidewalk, a broomstick braced across his narrow shoulders, yokelike, with a huge covered basket suspended from either end. A dead man—shot through the chest if the pattern of dried blood was any indication—leaned against the wall beside the undertaker's door, strapped to a board. A crude sign dangled from a nail above his head. The Wages Of Sin Is Death.

Holt had seen worse things, especially while riding with the Rangers, but the sight sent a shiver down his spine just the same. He couldn't help thinking of Gabe.

He spotted a livery stable and headed in that direction. Gabe had said Melina was working for a rancher's wife, which meant he wasn't likely to find her in town, but his horse was played out, in need of water, feed and a few hours' rest. He would see to the Appaloosa first, then scare up some breakfast for himself. With any luck, the folks in the restaurant would steer him in the right direction.

He'd just taken a chair by the window and ordered up a plate of eggs, fried potatoes and sausage when Captain Jack Walton himself ambled in. Grizzled and wiry, the man was deceptively small. Holt had seen him take on
Comanches two at a time and come out of it with his hair still on and his hide unmarked.

Holt blinked, sure he was seeing things, and set down his mug of coffee.

Captain Jack laughed. “Thought I was dead, didn't you?” he drawled, taking off his round-brimmed hat and easing himself into the chair across from Holt's.

“Hell, yes,” Holt said, recovering, taking in the Captain's thinning gray hair and hard, watchful eyes. “Fact is, I'm still not sure you're real.”

Walton's skin was leathery from the Texas sun, and his hands were age-spotted, the fingers clawlike, yet still, Holt would have bet, as quick to the trigger as ever. “I had the same thought about you, when I saw you ride in. That's a fine-looking Appaloosa you've got there.”

Holt nodded. He didn't know how to make small talk, not with the Captain, anyhow. “Thanks,” he said, at some length, noting the star pinned to the old man's vest.

Walton signaled the waitress, and she hurried over with a blue enamel coffeepot and an outsized cup. Evidently, the Captain still liked his brew.

“What brings you to Waco?” he asked, after adding half a pound of sugar and taking an appreciative slurp.

“I'm looking for a woman called Melina Garcia,” Holt said, wondering if the Captain had been the one to put a bullet in that outlaw over at the undertaker's and then display the corpse as a deterrent to those with criminal inclinations. He was a man to take harsh measures when he deemed them appropriate, which was often.

The Captain arched one eyebrow. “Gabe Navarro's woman?”

Holt's stomach soured, and he regarded his unfinished breakfast with mournful resignation. “Yes.”

Walton leaned forward. “You the bearer of bad tidings,
Mr. Cavanagh?” he asked. “Last I heard, you was up in the Arizona Territory someplace, building yourself another ranch.”

“Gabe's been tried and sentenced to hang, down in San Antonio,” Holt said. The details about Arizona could wait.

The Captain narrowed his eyes. “The hell you say.”

“I would have thought you'd have heard about it,” Holt said. “Word like that usually spreads fast.”

“I've been in Mexico the last little while. Just came up here to collect a bounty or two.”

“‘The wages of sin is death'?”

The Captain smiled. He still had all his teeth. “You seen him, did you? Name was Jake Green. Robbed a freight wagon between here and Austin, and shot the driver in cold blood.”

Holt glanced at the star on Walton's chest. “Bounty hunters wear badges now?”

“They do if the money's right,” the Captain answered. He settled back in his chair, took a thoughtful sip of his coffee. “You gonna eat that grub or leave it sit?”

Holt shoved the plate across the table, along with his fork and knife.

The Captain speared a sausage link and ate it in two bites. Still chewing, he said, “Melina's working on the Parkinson place, about five miles west of town. I'd be careful how you broach the subject of Gabe if I was you. She's brewing up a baby, and she's none too happy with him right now.”

“I'll take my chances,” Holt said.

The Captain grinned and tucked into the eggs. “You always were a reckless sum-bitch,” he allowed. “It's good to see you. Brings the good old days to mind.”

The waitress returned, refilled the coffee cups and left again.

“The good old days,” Holt reminisced with a wry smile. “Sleeping on the ground. Eating jerky and jackrabbit for every meal. Fighting Comanches for every inch of ground we crossed. And all for less money than Melina probably makes washing Mrs. Parkinson's bloomers.”

The Captain gave a hoot of laughter. “Made you tough,” he said.

“You ever thought of going to San Antonio?” Holt inquired.

Walton speared another link of sausage. “Not until you said Gabe was in the hoosegow. Then the idea got real attractive, all of the sudden. If they're fixing to lynch him, he must have been charged with murder.”

“Murder and horse thieving,” Holt confirmed.

“Bullshit,” the Captain said. “Gabe never killed nobody that didn't need killing. Probably not above helping himself to a horse now and again, though.”

He paused to savor more coffee, then grunted with lusty satisfaction as he set the cup down again. “Who's behind this monkey circus, anyhow?”

“I'm not sure,” Holt said, “but I'd say it was a rancher named Isaac Templeton.”

The name evidently registered with Walton. He sighed and shook his head, but whatever his misgivings, they didn't seem to affect his appetite. “Now there's more bad news,” he said. “When do you figure on heading back to San Antone?”

“First thing tomorrow,” Holt answered, pulling a dollar from his pocket and laying it on the table for the bill. “In the meantime, I'd better get a horse and head for the Parkinson place.”

Walton helped himself to the checkered napkin the
waitress had left for Holt and wiped his mouth, leaving considerable egg yolk in his handlebar mustache. Then he unpinned the badge.

“Damn,” he said. “The wages wasn't much, but I'll miss this job.”

T
HE RANCH
certainly wasn't prepossessing in any way, Lorelei decided, taking in the property from the seat of Raul's wagon. The house leaned to one side, and the barn had disintegrated to a pile of weathered board, but there was a well, and plenty of grass.

Raul wiped his sweating face with the bandana around his neck. “Just over that hill,” he said, quite unnecessarily, gesturing to the east, “is Mr. Templeton's place.”

Lorelei had fixed her gaze on the far bank of a wide, deep stream, where a few cattle grazed. “And that's Mr. Cavanagh's northern boundary,” she said.

“Sí,”
Raul said, seeming to wilt in the heat. “It was—until he sold it to the man from Arizona.”

Lorelei gathered her skirts and scrambled down off the wagon. “I'll need a horse,” she said, pushing aside the thought that “the man from Arizona” was none other than Holt McKettrick.

“What?” Raul asked, as if he hadn't heard her correctly.

“A
horse,
” Lorelei said, proceeding toward the ranch house. Perhaps Raul could shore up the walls. She could plant a garden, have the barn rebuilt and buy a few head of cattle.

“But you don't know how to ride,” Raul pointed out hastily, sounding worried as he left the wagon to follow her. “Watch where you step,
señorita
—there are snakes.”

“I can
learn
to ride,” she said. “And I'm not afraid of snakes.”

She approached the house. Her mother must have lived here. Played just outside the door, skipping rope, perhaps, or making mud-pies.

She inspected the log walls, peered inside. There was only one room, with a rusted stove, warped wooden floors and evidence of mice, but with a little bracing and some sweeping, the place would be habitable.

“Your father will never allow it,” Raul pleaded.

“My father can just go whistle,” Lorelei replied, running a hand down the framework of the door. Sturdy.

“You cannot live out here alone,
señorita.
”

“I won't be alone,” Lorelei said. “Angelina will come with me.”

Raul crossed himself and muttered a prayer in rapid Spanish. That done, he pointed wildly toward the Templeton property, then across the wide stream, toward Mr. Cavanagh's land. “There is a range war coming,” he told her frantically. “And you will be in the middle!”

Lorelei shaded her eyes with one hand. “Mr. Cavanagh is a very nice man,” she said. “I'm sure he wouldn't do anything violent.”

“But I told you,
señorita,
he is not really the owner anymore.”

Lorelei bit her lower lip. John Cavanagh was a man of peace. He worked hard and kept to himself. Holt McKettrick, on the other hand, was an unknown quantity. He might or might not make a good neighbor.

“I will not permit a range war,” she said, after due
consideration. “Mr. Templeton, Mr. Cavanagh and Mr. McKettrick will simply have to work things out between themselves.”

“But,
señorita
—”

Lorelei proceeded to the well. Tried in vain to hoist the heavy wooden cover.

Raul moved it for her, and she peered down the shaft.

“I see water down there,” she said. She squinted, and her stomach turned. “And a dead animal of some sort.”

“Madre de Dios,”
Raul whispered.

“We'll need shovels,” Lorelei decided, already making a list in her mind. “Perhaps Mr. Wilkins, at the mercantile, will know of some substance that will purify the water.”

“Ay-yi-yi,” lamented Raul.

“Can you teach me to shoot a gun?” Lorelei inquired, dusting her hands together. “If you can't, I shall have to learn on my own.”

“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?

 

T
HEY 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.