Broken Vows (49 page)

      
In the struggle, he had dropped his revolver and stopped to pick it up. She scrambled deeper into the maze of steaming, muddy earth.

      
“You won't get far, Rebekah,” he called after her with maddening calm, then began following her with the same relentless, inexorable patience he brought to every task.

      
Kelso cursed as he pulled Patrick's inert body from the wagon, only to have the big Irishman come to life just as his feet hit the ground. Still dazed, Madigan tried to swing at the gunman but only grazed him. Kelso shoved him back and started to draw his gun. Patrick grappled with him, seeing blurry triple images of his foe as he concentrated on making his arms and legs obey his commands.

      
If only he could hold on. Patrick could hear Henry's taunts to Rebekah in the distance. He had to help her, but his knees felt like rain-soaked ropes and his hands were unable to still the gunman's hand as it moved the deadly weapon nearer his head. He threw his whole weight on the man, hoping to topple him over backward; but it did not work. Patrick started to go down, still holding on to his enemy's arm. Then, suddenly, the gunman was yanked free just as a shot roared from his weapon.

      
Rory leaped at Kelso from Lobsterback's saddle. As Patrick and the gunman fought over the weapon, he had been unable to get a clear shot without endangering his brother. He knocked the killer free of Patrick in the split second before the bullet from Kelso's Colt would have taken off Patrick's head. Unfortunately, the impact of landing caused his own gun to fall from his holster. Kelso turned with a snarl of surprise as Madigan buried a hard right in his midsection. The force of the blow knocked his gun away but also sent pain lancing up Rory's injured shoulder. Gritting his teeth, he ignored it. Kelso grabbed his belly, staggering backward, but did not go down.

      
As Patrick dropped to the ground, his head spinning and his ears ringing with his exertions, his brother began to methodically pound his much larger opponent. Kelso was slow, but he was tough and muscular and had a significant height and weight advantage. With a bull-like bellow, the killer charged. Rory's lightning series of left jabs slowed his advance and dazed him; but he kept on coming, his big meaty right fist raised for a Sunday punch.

      
Rory slipped past the powerful but clumsy swing, then landed several more wicked hooking blows to Kelso's floating rib before retreating. His gun lay in the dust only a few yards away, but he knew he'd never reach it before Kelso could grab his, which was even closer.

      
I can 't outshoot him. I sure as hell have to outfight him.
He closed with Kelso again, this time following his swift left jabs with a hard right that dazed the killer. Rory could hear Snead and Rebekah out in that hellish sea of boiling mud, yet he dared not take his eyes from Henry's hireling. Patrick was too dazed to go to her. A patch of the reddish slime lay directly behind his foe. If he could only get the gunman to back up and step into it. There was but one way. His jab smashed into the big man's face again and again, driving him backward.

      
The big brute started to slip just as Rory came forward with a long right. The blow grazed Kelso's jaw, doing no serious damage, but knocking him off balance. As the gunman went down, his right foot came out to trip Rory, who rolled to the ground on top of him. The two men slid in the mud, punching and gouging as the sulfurous slime flew all around them until they were covered with it.

      
Henry could see that Kelso had his hands full with Madigan. In spite of his size, Kelso was no match for a professional like the Irishman. Snead abandoned his pursuit of Rebekah and began to make his way back to where the two mud-soaked gladiators were battling, raising his pocket revolver to get a clear shot at the Irishman.

      
Rory regained his footing enough to scramble away from Kelso, back onto dry ground, hoping he could reach the nearest gun; but the big killer was right behind him. Madigan whirled around before Kelso could seize hold of him and hunched low, delivering a hard hook to his foe's crotch. Then, as Kelso doubled over in surprise, Rory's right uppercut landed squarely on his jaw with such force that Madigan felt it clear up to his injured shoulder.
      
Ignoring the pain, he closed in for the kill with a sweeping left hook that brought Kelso to his knees. When the brute pitched back into the mud and began to sink, Rory made a run for the gun Kelso had dropped, but Snead was too close.

      
“I don't think so, Madigan,” he said calmly, raising his weapon and taking aim.

      
“Rory, no!” Rebekah screamed, trying to distract Henry. She slipped and slid, her skirts dragging through the mud as she made one last desperate lunge for her target.

      
Snead turned in surprise, having completely discounted his troublesome sister-in-law. He swung his gun toward her, but her right hand came up with the paring knife arcing for his throat. This time she caught him cleanly across the carotid artery. Blood spurted out like a plume of crimson mud from a geyser. He dropped the revolver and staggered back, toppling into a deep mud pot. One strangling gurgle got past his lips as he flailed in the dark yellow slime which quickly bubbled up around his thrashing body.

      
Rebekah stood trembling, her eyes transfixed with horror on Henry Snead as his lifeless body was sucked down into the cauldron, leaving behind an ugly pinkish-gray stain.

      
“He's going straight to hell, just the way he deserves,” Rory said as he took Rebekah in his arms and turned her from the grisly scene.

      
“Oh, Rory, I knew you couldn't be dead!” She threw her arms around him and held on tightly, burying her face against his mud-smeared chest. “He told me—he said Kelso had—”

      
“Shh, don't think about it. It's all over now,” he soothed as she trembled in his arms.

      
“I k-killed a man.”

      
“You saved my life—and Patrick's and your own.” He held her tightly. “Oh, Rebekah, if I'd lost you....” He, too, trembled as he guided her away from the maze of bubbling mud holes.

      
“Patrick's been hurt badly,” she said, looking over to where he had fallen by the wagon.

      
Patrick was struggling to stay on his feet, Rory's gun clutched firmly in his hand as he tried to focus on Kelso, who was crawling slowly from the mire, choking and cursing. The dazed Patrick had to hold on to the wagon with one hand to remain standing. He could see three Kelsos in front of him, but he held the gun steady until his brother dragged the defeated killer to the wagon.

      
“Let's use the rope he tied me with on him,” Patrick said as Rory shoved Kelso against the wagon.

      
“See,” Rory said, turning to Rebekah, “it takes more than a little cosh on the head to keep an Irishman down.”

      
She let out a small hiccup of relief. “That's only because there's nothing between an Irishman's ears to hurt.”

      
“I only see two of him now. That mean I'm recovering?” Patrick asked as he handed the gun to Rory.

      
Rebekah helped Patrick sit down in the shade of the wagon, then examined the huge lump on his temple, which still oozed blood. “Thank God, you Irish are a tough lot,” she said with relief and amazement.

      
Rory tied Kelso up and shoved him into the wagon, then knelt beside his brother and his wife. “Let me see that thick skull.”

      
Rebekah realized for the first time that her husband was bleeding too. A long slash of red trickled through the thick yellow mud plastered to his right shoulder. “Henry said Kelso shot you—he did!”

      
“Just grazed me, but I went down. Luckily for me, he couldn't stay to finish the job.”

      
“How did you find us?”

      
“I learned in Carson that Henry was behind everything. When I arrived at the Flying W, Michael and Patsy were frantic. They came back to the ranch house and you were missing with no explanation. I searched the grounds and found a stable boy who said he saw Henry ride off behind a wagon driven by a stranger. I knew he had to have you, and I guessed he'd taken Patrick, too. Luck of the Irish that the wind was still today, else the wagon tracks would’ve vanished.” He looked from his wife to his brother in profound gratitude that they were still alive.

      
Rebekah said worriedly, “Let me wrap your shoulder. It's bleeding worse.”

      
He stood patiently as she ripped off a piece of her mud-soaked petticoat and began to wrap it around his shoulder. “I've heard mud packs are supposed to have mineral salts in them for healing,” he said, raising one eyebrow dubiously.

      
“If true, we should both be healthy as oxen,” she replied.

      
“Smear some of it on my head, why don't you?” Patrick interjected as Rory helped him into the wagon. All three laughed, purging some of the tension after their brush with death.

      
“Are you sure I shouldn't drive for a while?” Rebekah asked for the third time since they had begun the long, slow ride back to the Flying W. Patrick was asleep in the back of the wagon. They had traveled for nearly an hour. “You're hurt and bleeding,” she persisted.

      
“You're hurt and bleeding too, I think, only it's on the inside, Rebekah,” Rory said as he studied her haunted expression. He knew what having to kill a man did to any decent, God-fearing man, much less to a woman raised in a religious home such as Rebekah had been. Even worse, she had killed her sister's husband, a man she had believed to be her friend.

      
“Oh, Rory, how could he have done all this?” Her voice broke and she leaned into his body as he encircled her shoulders with his arm. “For all these years, I thought he was my closest friend...and then, there he was in Amos' office, pointing that gun at me, explaining how he'd set spies on us, hired those men to kill you in Denver. He conspired to separate us from the beginning. And he was so calm, almost apologetic when he spoke, as if he regretted the inconvenience to me!”

      
He could hear the pain and bewilderment in her voice and knew it was best that she talk about all that had happened. “Henry wanted money more than anything—money and power. I suppose he had always been jealous of Amos, who was an easy man to dislike. Some men are just...” He groped for the right words. “Ruthless yet passionless at the same time.”

      
“He told me he'd raise Michael with his own boys. But I knew that when Michael came of age, he'd be in the way just as we were.” She shuddered and fought back the sting of tears.

      
“Cry, Rebekah. Let it out, darlin',” he said softly. “We've lost eight years together, and you've lost someone you thought was a friend.” She sobbed, great racking shudders tearing through her. Rory held her close to him as the wagon bounced its way west, back to the Flying W Ranch where Michael waited.

      
They had the rest of their lives to make up for the mistakes and tragedies of the past.

Chapter Twenty-one

      
Rebekah did not want to stay in Amos's big, garish ranch house that night, but there was really no choice. Darkness was approaching, and Patrick's injury was too dangerous for him to travel farther. Rory helped his groggy brother into one of the guest rooms upstairs.

      
Rebekah quickly put a frightened and exhausted Michael to bed and sat with her son until he drifted off to sleep, secure in the knowledge that she was indeed safely by his side again. Once he was resting comfortably, she left Patsy to watch him, then went downstairs where Rory was explaining to Ephraim all that had happened.

      
“I'll go over to Leah's place and tell her Henry's dead. It's my duty, and it'll come better from me,” the old man said quietly to Rory. He looked up and saw Rebekah standing in the doorway with a stricken look on her face.

      
“I killed him. Oh, Papa, Leah will never forgive me,” she said in a raw, anguished voice, her hands clenched into fists at her sides.

      
“She won't know, Rebekah. There's no reason to further burden her with that knowledge. I'll tell her that Patrick shot him to save your life.”
How good you've become at dissembling, old man,
he chided himself as he took Rebekah in his arms and patted her back.

      
She raised tear-filled eyes to meet his. “Leah and I were never close... I always regretted that, but now she'll need help.”

      
“I'll see that she and her boys are provided for, Reverend Sinclair,” Rory said quietly.

      
Ephraim nodded. “That's generous of you, Mr. Madigan.”

      
“It's my duty to offer what I can easily afford. After all, we're family now.” He met Sinclair's eyes and read resignation and acceptance in them. This was not the time to push for a showdown with Rebekah’s family. He knew how hard it was for Rebekah and her father to accept Snead's crimes and how guilty Rebekah felt for killing him.

      
“I'll stay the night with Leah. I expect she'll be needing me. Will you be all right, Rebekah?” Ephraim studied her pale but composed face. She had always been the stronger of his girls.

      
“I'll be fine, Papa. Just take care of Leah and the boys.”

      
Rory put his arm around her waist proprietarily. “We can talk when everyone's up to it.” He and his wife watched as the reverend left in his small black buggy, heading for Leah's house.