Secondhand Bride (8 page)

T
he stagecoach was just too much of a temptation, stopped alongside the moonlit trail the way it was, and Jack Barrett couldn’t resist a chance to line his empty pockets. He reined in when he saw the rig from a tree-lined ridge, pulled his bandanna up to hide the lower part of his face, and yanked his rifle from its scabbard.

Besides the driver, who was squatting next to the coach, cursing a broken axle, there seemed to be only two passengers, a woman and a little girl, both of them wearing calico and bonnets. No telling who might be inside, though—Jack proceeded with caution. He’d been on a losing streak lately, and he wanted money, not trouble.

The driver wasn’t carrying a sidearm, Jack made sure of that first thing. As he rode up, he leaned in the saddle to look through the coach window: empty. He smiled behind his bandanna.

The woman and child stared at him in curious alarm, while the driver straightened and tried to bluff his way through the hopeless hand he’d been dealt.

“There’s no money on this stage, mister,” he said. “You’re taking a hell of a risk, and it won’t pay you.”

The little girl stepped forward, evading the woman’s grasping reach, and turned her face up to Jack, bold as you please. He figured she was seven or eight years old, ten at the most. He hoped he wouldn’t have to shoot her; he’d never gunned down a kid before, and he didn’t know how it would set with him.

“Are you a bandit?” she asked.

“Lizzie,” the woman said, sounding scared and angry. “Get back here.
Now
.” She was a good-looking lady, but shrill. Jack didn’t reckon he’d mind putting a bullet or two into her; he’d be doing a service to some man.

Lizzie didn’t move. “Answer my question,” she said, the brazen little snippet.

Out of the corner of his eye, Jack saw the driver make a move toward the step leading into the box of the coach. No doubt he had a rifle or a pistol tucked away under the seat.

Jack turned the rifle on him and pulled the trigger, watching with satisfaction as the old codger fell, bleeding, to the ground. “That answer enough, little girl?” he asked.

The woman caught the child by both shoulders and drew her back against her skirts. “Please,” she said. “Don’t hurt us. I’ve got some jewelry, and some money, too. Take it and ride out.”

“Get it,” Jack said shortly, “and don’t do anything stupid, because, begging your pardon, ma’am, I’d as soon shoot you as spit.”

Her face was snow-pale, even shadowed by the brim of her bonnet. “I won’t. Just, please—”

The little girl was too young for good sense, it seemed, for she stood her ground. “You did a bad thing,” she said. “When my papa finds out, he’ll hunt you down and lynch you for sure.”

Jack chuckled. The kid was an irritant, but he got a kick out of her brass. “That so?” he countered, keeping a close eye on the woman while she fetched her reticule from inside the coach. “What’s your papa’s name? I’ll be sure and look him up.”

“Don’t you dare say a word, Lizzie Cavanagh,” the woman warned, and then bit her lip, realizing, too late, that she’d betrayed the very thing she’d wanted the kid to keep quiet about. She cast a worried glance in the direction of the inert driver, then handed up a drawstring bag, a fancy thing, made of velvet, and heavy.

While Jack was fumbling to open the purse, the woman drew a derringer from the pocket of her skirt and pointed it at him, her aim true. He barely dodged the bullet, heard it tear a chunk out of the coach, and retaliated with the rifle. The woman fell, the girl screamed and ran to her, and Jack jammed his gun back into its scabbard and swung down from the saddle.

“Aunt Geneva!” the child cried, shaking the woman with her small hands.

Jack retrieved the derringer, dropped it into his coat pocket, and scrambled up into the driver’s seat, in search of the strongbox. He broke the lock with the butt of his.44, lifted the lid, and congratulated himself for taking the trouble. There must have been a couple of thousand dollars in there, neatly stacked and tied with string. He cast a contemptuous glance at the lying driver, dead for his sins, shoved it all into his pockets, and whistled for his horse. The animal drew up alongside the stage, and he eased himself into the saddle.

The little girl looked up at him, her small face streaked with tears, her eyes defiant. The woman was bleeding from the throat, staring sightlessly at the sky.

Jack tugged at the brim of his hat. “You tell your papa, when you see him, that he owes me a favor,” he said.

She jutted out her obstinate little chin. “What for?” she demanded.

“Not killing you,” he answered. With that, he rode off into the night, wondering if he was doing the right thing, leaving a witness to tell the tale. He almost turned back, at one point, but in the end he decided against it. If the cold didn’t finish the kid off, the cougars would.

He was miles away before he remembered that he hadn’t checked under the stagecoach seat for a gun.

Maybe she had a chance after all.

U
nable to face the long ride back to the ranch, Jeb spent the night at the Arizona Hotel, though, regrettably, not in Chloe’s bed, and he didn’t sleep well. He was on the way to the livery stable, to collect his horse and go home, when he ran into Sam Fee, the marshal.

“Sam,” he said, with a cordial nod. He would have gone on past, but for the look of consternation on the lawman’s face. “Something wrong?”

“Stagecoach didn’t come in yesterday afternoon,” Sam said. “I figured they were just running late, but they should have been here by now.”

Jeb felt a pinch in the pit of his belly. “You heading out to find them?”

Sam was already moving toward the stables. “Yup,” he said. “I reckon I’d better. Could be they threw a wheel or ran into some other kind of trouble.”

“I’ll ride with you,” Jeb said, matching his stride to Sam’s.

“Obliged,” Sam said. There’d been some trouble between him and the McKettricks, specifically Rafe, when Gig Curry burned the Fee homestead to the ground and left the Triple M brand on a tree for a kind of calling card, but that was behind them now.

They were a couple of hours south of town when they found the coach and team of six fretful horses just off the trail, and there were two bodies on the ground.

Jeb cursed and jumped down from the saddle, with Sam only a step behind him. He crouched beside the woman, but he knew before he touched her that there would be no pulse. She’d been shot through the throat, and the ground was awash in blood.

Sam, in the meantime, squatted by the driver. “Dead,” he said.

“Son of a bitch,” Jeb muttered, and just as he was about to stand up, he spotted the barrel of a pistol, probably a Colt .45, gleaming in the window of the coach.

“Don’t you try anything,” a small voice warned. “I’ll shoot you dead if you do.”

Jeb squinted, hardly trusting his eyes. The speaker was a little girl, wearing a calico bonnet, and he figured she meant business.

He put his hands out from his sides. “It’s all right,” he said quietly. “Sam here is the marshal. We’re not going to hurt you.”

“You might be an outlaw,” the kid insisted. Her eyes were big with fear and red-rimmed from crying, but she was a brave one, for sure, and meant to stand her ground.

“Sam,” Jeb said easily, “let her see your badge.”

Sam stepped into view, the nickel star gleaming on his coat. “He’s telling the truth, child,” he said, in his taciturn way. “Put down that gun, now, before you hurt yourself.”

She took her time deciding the matter, but she finally lowered the .45—she’d needed both hands to hold it— and worked the latch on the door. “If you hurt me, my papa will skin you,” she said, climbing down the steps.

“What happened here?” Sam wanted to know.

“What’s your name?” Jeb asked, talking right over the marshal.

“Lizzie,” she said, and her gaze dropped to the dead woman on the ground, then shot back to Jeb’s face. “What’s yours?”

“Jeb McKettrick. This is Sam Fee.”

“He shot my aunt,” Lizzie said. A tear trickled down her cheek.

“Who?” Sam asked.

“The outlaw, of course,” Lizzie answered, a little testily. “He took all our money, too.”

Sam and Jeb exchanged glances.

“We’re going to look after you,” Jeb said. “Find your papa. Everything will be all right.”

She didn’t look convinced and kept her distance. Little wonder, after what she’d been through.

“You must be cold and hungry,” Jeb went on.

“Scared, mostly,” the child answered.

“How old are you?” Jeb asked, while Sam went to unhitch the team from the stagecoach.

“Ten,” Lizzie answered, with a sniffle, squaring her small shoulders. “How old are you?”

Under any other circumstances, he would have laughed, but there were two people dead, and a little girl had seen the whole thing. She’d spent the night by herself, most likely expecting the gunman to come back. “Twenty-eight,” he said, and took a careful step toward her.

She looked him up and down, but when he fetched a lap robe from inside the coach, she let him put it around her. Sam, leaving the freed horses to forage for grass alongside the road, took the bedroll from behind his saddle and covered the woman’s body with it.

“I’ve got some jerky in my saddlebags,” Jeb said, to distract her from the process. “You want some?”

“I reckon I do,” Lizzie allowed. “I wouldn’t mind a little water, either, if you’ve got it.”

Jeb fetched the jerky, along with his canteen, and brought them to her. “You mentioned your papa a little while ago,” he said, sitting on the running board of the stagecoach beside her. “We’re going to need his name.”

She had a mouthful of jerky and chewed it thoroughly before swallowing. Washed it down with some water, too. Finally, she replied. “Holt Cavanagh.”

Jeb’s mouth dropped open. He closed it again. Waited.

Tears welled in the child’s eyes, and he was hard put not to lay an arm around her shoulders, but she was a bristly little thing, full of pride, and he didn’t want to scare her, either. “He didn’t know we were coming,” she said staunchly. “He might not even want me.”

Jeb felt his gut grind. “Where’s your mama?” he asked, after a quiet interval had passed. Now that he was getting over the shock, he noticed her resemblance to Holt.

“She’s dead,” Lizzie said, without looking at him. “She caught a fever last winter, in San Antonio. Aunt Geneva brought me here, soon as she could.”

“You’ve had a hard time,” Jeb said, but his brain was reeling. If Cavanagh was Lizzie’s father, then she was flesh and blood, a niece. A McKettrick. Damned if the old man hadn’t gotten his grandchild after all, and God knew what the ramifications of that would be.

She gave him a disdainful look. Of
course
she’d had a hard time, her expression said. She’d lost her mother and seen her aunt and the stagecoach driver shot down. She’d spent the night hiding in the stagecoach, cold, hungry, and scared.

“If you saw the man—the outlaw—again, could you recognize him?”

Her expression was doubtful, and her lower lip wobbled forlornly. “It was nighttime, and he had a bandanna over his face.”

Sam had rolled the bodies up in blankets. “We’d best get the child and these poor folks to town,” he said.

Jeb nodded, rose with a sigh, and he and Sam caught a couple of the team horses. They rigged halters and lead ropes from the stagecoach reins, laid the bodies over the animals’ backs, and secured them with rope from their own saddles.

“Mister?” Lizzie said.

Jeb turned to see the child standing close by, waited for her to go on.

“Can I ride with you?”

He smiled, for the first time in what seemed like days. “Sure,” he said. He scooped her up and set her in his saddle, then climbed up behind her and took the reins in one hand. Sam handed him one end of a lead rope, mounted his own horse, and they started back toward Indian Rock, the two team horses trotting behind them, bearing their grim burdens.

Lizzie turned in the saddle. “Do I have to call you Mr. McKettrick?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Uncle Jeb will do,” he replied.

N
aturally, their arrival in town drew a lot of attention.

Chloe, Becky, and Emmeline were among the first to approach them.

“Good heavens,” Becky blurted. “What happened?”

“Stagecoach was robbed,” Sam answered. “Two people shot to death. This little girl here, she saw it all.”

Becky stepped forward, extended her arms to the child. Lizzie stiffened, took a grip on Jeb’s coat sleeve, and wouldn’t let go.

“Poor little thing,” Emmeline whispered, shading her eyes from the sun as she looked up. “You must be frightened half to death.”

Jeb’s gaze met Chloe’s and locked with it. “She’s a brave one,” he said. “And she’s a McKettrick.”

“I’m
not
a McKettrick,” Lizzie said, turning a challenging look on him, even as she clutched his coat for dear life. “My name is Cavanagh.”

“Land sakes,” Becky exclaimed.

“Holt’s?” Emmeline wanted to know.

“Evidently so,” Jeb said, tearing his gaze from Chloe. “You’d better send somebody to fetch him.”

Emmeline nodded and turned away to recruit a bystander for the job, and Becky stepped forward again, speaking quietly to the child.

“Come along now, sweetheart. Nobody’s going to hurt you.”

Lizzie consulted Jeb with another glance, and, “Is she a straight shooter?”

Jeb chuckled. “Yes,” he said.

She deliberated, then let go of his arm and allowed Becky to help her down from the horse. They were already inside the hotel, with Emmeline right behind them, having dispatched her messenger, before it came to Jeb that he ought to dismount himself. When he did, he just stood there, feeling sad for Lizzie and envious of Holt.

Chloe laid a tentative hand to his cheek, and it scared him, how good it felt. “Was it bad?” she asked.

“Worse than bad,” he admitted. He didn’t want to leave her, but the work wasn’t finished. “I’ve got to help Sam get these bodies over to Doc Boylen’s office,” he said.

She nodded, studied his face for a long moment, and turned to follow the others into the hotel.

Word traveled fast in a place like Indian Rock, and by noon, Angus and Concepcion rolled into town in a buckboard, driving the horses hard. They’d barely stepped into the hotel when Holt rode in at a gallop and left his gelding with its reins dangling.

Jeb, seeing the whole show from the bench out front, got to his feet and went inside.

“Where,” Angus demanded, in a Zeus-like voice, “is my grandchild?”

“She’s upstairs, sleeping,” Becky said calmly, stationed like a sentry at the foot of the stairs, “and you will not disturb her, Angus McKettrick.”

Holt, it appeared, would not be so easy to dissuade. He strode right over to Becky and stood toe-to-toe with her. “Which room?”

To everybody’s surprise, Becky stepped aside. “Number seven,” she said. “But don’t wake her up. She’s been through enough for one day.”

Holt took the stairs two at a time. Angus looked like he wanted to follow, but Concepcion gripped his arm, and he let himself be restrained.

Five minutes passed, then ten. The only sound in the room, as far as Jeb noticed, was the ticking of the long-case clock on the lower landing.

Finally, Holt appeared at the top of the stairs, looking like a man who’d just been dragged over rough ground behind a fast horse.

“Well?” Angus half bellowed.

Holt gripped the rail with one hand as he came down the steps. He was pale, and there was a fevered light in his eyes.

“I didn’t know,” he said, without looking straight at any of them. “Goddammit,
I didn’t know
.”

“She’s yours, then?” Angus pressed.

Holt shook his head, a man in a daze, but he finally looked the old man in the eye. “Yes,” he said. “She’s mine, all right.”