The Outlaws (2 page)

“The new ones ain’t Indians,” Ezra shouted.

For a moment Tessa couldn’t make out what he meant.

“They’re white men,” Ezra cried jubilantly.

An Apache tumbled from his horse to sprawl unmoving in the dirt. Tessa stared, then realized one of the oncoming men had shot him. The roar of the Colt had temporarily deafened her so she hadn’t heard the rifle crack.

The remaining Apaches bunched together, facing the riders pounding toward them. Ezra squeezed off a shot and one of the Indian ponies stumbled.

“Damn,” Ezra mumbled. “
Missed.”

Tessa held her breath, afraid to hope. She eased toward the front of the wagon, Jules still clinging to her skirts. Ezra had but one shot left. She had two.

The hat of the rider on the gray flew off. He crouched lower on his horse, but kept coming. The man on the sorrel aimed his rifle. Smoke puffed. An Apache veered off to the left and galloped on without wheeling. Wounded? Or fleeing? Either way he was out of the fight.

Ezra fired his last bullet. She felt Jules trembling against her side, put her arm around him and drew him close. His thin body shook with tearless sobbing.

The last three Apaches suddenly turned their ponies sharply to the right and galloped south. The two men stared after them, then reined in and dismounted. She saw smoke puff from their rifles.

“Licked ‘em!” Ezra cried.

The Colt in Tessa’s right hand felt too heavy to hold and she laid it aside. “There now,” she murmured to Jules. “We’re all right.”

Her eyes rested on the limp body of her father, shot through the head by an Apache before he’d had time to draw his pistol. Tears burned in her eyes.

“Papa’s dead,” Ezra said, his hazel eyes no longer sparkling with the excitement of battle.

Tessa reached for his hand and gripped it hard as they watched the two white men remount and lope toward the wagon. The one on the gray had fair hair and looked to be scarcely older than Ezra. The rider on the sorrel was older, taller and very dark, with a high-cheek-boned face. He was better looking than any man she’d met in Texas—or in England, for that matter.

“Hello the wagon,” he called as he neared.

Tessa handed Jules to Ezra. She couldn’t bring herself to climb over her father’s body, so she went to the back and slid off the tailboard, then walked around to meet the riders.

“I’m Tessa Nesbitt,” she said. “Thank God you came.”

Mark couldn’t find any words as he stared at the young woman standing in front of him. He dismounted, his eyes fixed on her pretty, dirt-smudged face. Her blonde hair glinted like gold in the sunlight and tears brightened her gray-blue eyes. He was transfixed by her beauty.

“The Apaches killed my father,” she said, her voice quivering.

Mark’s urge was to take her in his arms and comfort her as he would a child, but he held himself back, knowing he must not. The pleasing curves outlined by her brown dress showed she was no child.

He took off his hat, “I’m sorry,” he managed to say. “My name’s Mark Halloran.” He glanced behind him, seeing the Kid jump from his gray and saunter toward them. “And this is Billy Bonney,” he added.

“Too bad about your father, miss,” Billy said.

A boy bout Billy’s size came around the wagon carrying a younger boy. “These are my brothers,” Tessa said, “Ezra and Jules.”

“How about your mother, Miss Nesbitt?”, Mark asked.

Tessa bit her lip. “She died when Jules was born.”

“You hit that Apache through the heart,” Mr. Bonney,” Ezra said, staring at Billy. “Awful good shooting from a horse.”

Billy grinned. “Some call me Billy and some call me Kid, but no one calls me mister. If I can say Ezra, I reckon you can say Billy. You don’t sound like you’re from these parts.” “We were on our way from Texas to the town of Lincoln.” Tessa told him. Billy shook his head. “Don’t much like some Texans either.” “We came from England eight years ago,” Ezra said.

Mark strode to the mules. The three survivors looked to be in pretty fair shape. He used his knife to cut the harness off the dead mule.

Billy hastened to help him. As they dragged the mule’s body to one side, Billy muttered, “What about him, nodded toward the dead man on the wagon seat.

“Do you have a blanket we can use, Miss Nesbitt?” Mark asked

Tessa disappeared into the wagon, returning with a tattered brown blanket. Mark spread it on the ground. He and Billy eased Nesbitt’s body from the seat onto the blanket and wrapped it around him, then lifted him over the tail into the bed of the wagon.

Tessa, meanwhile, had spread another blanket, equally worn, over the bloodstained wagon seat. Ezra handed Jules to her and climbed up to the seat himself. Tessa took the reins.

“Why not let your brother drive the mules?” Mark asked, alarmed at how pale she looked.

Tessa shook her head. “I’ve been told the Indians always come back for their dead. Ezra will hold the Colt. He’s a better shot than I am.”

A bright girl. Practical and plucky as well as pretty. He’d never met one quite like Tessa Nesbitt.

“You have a point,” he told her. “We’d all best get moving.” He glanced at Billy and raised his eyebrows.

“Be a privilege for me and my amigo to escort you into town,” Billy said to Tessa, giving her his buck-toothed grin,

Tessa managed a ghost of a smile that touched Mark’s heart. “We were heading for John

Tunstall’s place. Do you know him?”

“He’s my boss,” Billy answered.

Mark’s mouth tightened. “We’ll see you safely there,” he said.

“Reckon they knew Tunstall back in England?” Billy asked once they were riding alongside the wagon.

“That’s where he’s from.’

“I haven’t met Tunstall,” Mark said.

Billy jerked his head toward the wagon. “Pretty girl. And that Ezra’s a good shot. Picked off one of those Mescaleros before we got there. Not much in the wagon. If that’s all they own, they ain’t got shucks.” He shook his head. “The little boy was scared silly. I’d like to wipe those red devils off the face of the earth.”

Billy snorted. “Only way to civilize any Apache is with this.” He patted the stock of his Winchester.

“That reminds me.” Mark’s voice hardened. “Steer clear of Dolan calves, Billy.”

Billy shrugged. “Hell, if I’d known you were out line-riding, amigo, I’d’ve kept my rope hung on the saddle.”

Mark opened his mouth, but bit the words back. He was glad he hadn’t shot the Kid. Dolan hated Chisum and Tunstall, but that didn’t mean he had to dislike Billy.

As for the brand-blotting, it was common practice. That didn’t make it right, but law in the New Mexico Territory was looser than back home in St. Louis where the Judge’s strict ideas of right and wrong had been passed on to Mark for all time. Here stray calves wound up belonging to the first man who found and branded them. Or re-branded. It wasn’t worth killing a man over.

“I’ll pick you for riding with against the Apaches anytime,” Mark said, giving Billy a reluctant grin.

Glancing up at the sky Mark saw the thin morning clouds were gone and the sun’s warmth cut the chill of the December day. Tessa’s eyes weren’t as bright a blue as the winter sky. They were a softer color—like the gray-blue of early evening.

Tunstall wasn’t married. A wealthy man, Mark had heard. How well did she know him? Was it possible they had an understanding? Mark’s hand tightened on the reins. He forced himself to relax. What was the matter with him?
Too much imagination, the Judge had always said. Painting mind pictures of what’s going to happen when you don’t know beans is what makes a man out to be a damn fool
.

It would be easy to be a damn fool over Tessa Nesbitt.

* * *

“What’ll happen to us if Mr. Tunstall won’t let us stay?” Ezra asked Tessa.

“I’m certain he will,” she assured him.

She was anything but sure. Papa had rambled on about going to school with John Tunstall’s cousin, about how Englishmen should stick together in a strange land. He’d urged her to make herself a new dress, blind to the fact she’d used up all of her mother’s old gowns and there was no money for new cloth.

“He comes of fine stock, Tessa, this John Henry Tunstall,” Papa had told her. “A monied family. I have to think of your future, child.”

That’s when she realized Papa planned to marry her off to this Englishman none of them had ever met. She’d protested, unhappy with the idea, but there was nothing for it but to go along with the trip to New Mexico Territory. There was nothing else to do.

Their money was gone, their cattle sold or stolen. Even her small stock of canned vegetables had been eaten. Foggy London seemed like Eden compared to Texas.

She glanced right and left at the countryside. This New Mexico valley along the Pecos River was brown with winter, like the bare branches of cottonwoods and willows. A mountain peak to the north was white with snow and the hills in the distance were green with pines. Perhaps everything didn’t turn brown and dusty here as spring gave way to summer, the way it did in Texas.

Where else did she have to go? It was humiliating to ask help from a stranger, but there was no choice but to swallow her pride and do it. She dreaded the moment she’d have to face John Tunstall and beg him to take her and her brothers in.

Tessa didn’t blame Papa for any of it. She blinked back tears, thinking of him lying dead behind her in the wagon, wrapped in one of their old blankets. She couldn’t cry now. Ezra would get upset and frighten poor Jules all over again.

Poor Papa. He’d tried hard, but he wasn’t fit for the life of a Texas rancher. Grandfather had been a minister and Papa ought to have followed in his footsteps. He’d’ve been happy enough in some country parish in England.

Even then, though, they’d have made it through another year and maybe things would have gotten better if it hadn’t been for the range war. Papa didn’t want to be on either side, but when the shooting started he’d had to choose and he chose wrong. There wasn’t much left when the smoke cleared.

Tessa heard Billy laugh and looked over at him, then at Mark Halloran. How handsome Mark was. Was he married? Her face flushed as she realized where her thoughts were leading. If John Tunstall were Mark she wouldn’t mind a bit going to live in his house.

“Do you think Billy was joking when he said people called him Kid?” Ezra asked. I don’t like being called that, even if I am only fourteen. But he’s old enough to be a cowboy, so why would anyone call him Kid?”

“He looks young,” Tessa said, her mind still on Mark.

“Billy’s a keen shot. Do you think he’d mind if I asked him to show me how he does it? Papa tried to teach me, but…” Ezra’s words trailed away and she saw him clench his jaw.

Papa hadn’t been a very good marksman, but what did that matter? He’d always tried to do his best, had always been there to depend on. Now he lay dead, killed by an Apache bullet. They were alone.

Tessa swallowed. She mustn’t let Ezra know how frightened she was. “Billy seems friendly,” she said. “I think he’ll be glad to help you. But, Ezra, there’s more to being a man than shooting. You know Papa wanted you to have schooling and…”“I know how to read and write and do sums. What more do I need?” Ezra shifted the Colt so it rested on one knee. He gazed steadily at the two men riding alongside the wagon.

“I won’t ever call him Kid,” Ezra said.

Chapter 2

Tessa stood on the riverbank in back of John Tunstall’s store. Behind and below her the Rio Bonito was crusted with ice. She wore a black silk gown and a black wool coat borrowed from Susie McSween. The minister’s words swept over her father’s rough-planked coffin and blew past her on a keen north wind. Tessa closed her eyes momentarily as they lowered the coffin.

“Ezra said Papa was inside that box,” Jules cried accusingly. “Don’t let them put Papa in a hole.”

Tessa crouched and put an arm around her little brother. “Papa’s dead,” she told him.

“His soul is in heaven.”

Jules began to cry with his face turned against her breast. Around her she heard sympathetic murmurs from the small group that had gathered to watch this stranger’s burial.

Poor Papa. Laid to rest in a town he’d never seen, so far from the green countryside of his native Kent.

Tessa felt John Tunstall’s hand pat her shoulder and glanced gratefully up at him. He’d taken charge from the moment Mark and Billy had brought her and her brothers into Tunstall’s store and bank.

John’s English speech was like an echo of their dead father and both boys had taken to him right away. Tessa liked him immensely. Though he was slight and fair with a boyish face, his air of authority gave her confidence

He’d immediately taken the Nesbitt’s to the McSween house next door to his store, telling Tessa he feared her reputation would suffer if she came to live at his ranch with no other woman there except his Mexican cook.

Alex and Susie McSween seemed delighted to have Tessa and the boys to stay with them, although the Shield family—father, mother and five children—already lived in the east wing of their large adobe house, along with Elizabeth Shield , Susie’s sister.