Comanche Cowboy (The Durango Family) (27 page)

Trask laughed again as he snapped the reins over the old mule and the buggy moved down the dusty, uneven street. “This is the prayingest family I ever met! Sometime, Sis, remind me to tell you what your pappy was like afore he got religion.”

“Don’t, Trask,” Joe said with a warning edge to his voice.
Would his little girls still idolize him if they knew he’d once been part of this gang for a brief time? That a bank teller had been killed in the escape when that sheriff showed up unexpectedly?

Trask shrugged, brushing against him in the crowded buggy seat. “Suit yourself. We’ll probably be moving on in a few more days, Sis, and old Rosita won’t have to cook no more for us. Never thought old Joe’d end up as a part-time preacher with a houseful of little girls. Every man ought to have a son.”

A son
. What was it Annie Laurie had said to him?
A son, Joe. Every man ought to have a son. Someday, God willin’, I’ll give you mine.

And now Annie’s son by some savage warrior was on his trail. Well, that was in the hands of God, wasn’t it? And nobody knew what the future held.

He and Annie sure hadn’t known when they’d left Kentucky together, newly married, with big dreams about someday owning a big spread in Texas.

They’d thought they had the world by the tail back then, so young, so full of dreams and hope. Joe’s mind went to the day he had seen her last, made love to her in the afternoon in that squalid little sod hut on the worthless few acres.

He rolled over and watched her, resting his chin on his hand. “I ought to be out plowin’,” he said, but made no move to go.

“Plow later.” She looked into his eyes and smiled. Why was it everyone thought the gentle girl so plain? When she smiled, she was beautiful the way her face lit up, the tiny crinkles around her wide gray eyes. “The crop’s not doin’ too good anyways.”

He didn’t want to think about how poor the land was, how they’d been cheated by banker Ogle as to how rich the soil was. When he’d sold them the spread, Ogle hadn’t warned them the area was full of Comanche, either.

He kissed the tip of her nose. “Annie, girl, I haven’t done right by you. I had such big plans.”

“Wherever you are, Joe, that’s good enough for me.” She reached to touch his face with her work-worn hands. “I’d like to see the Lazy M grow, became a big spread for our children and grandchildren. But if it doesn’t, I don’t regret marryin’ you; I don’t regret comin’ to Texas one whit.”

He loved her so much for her unselfish adoration that his heart filled up and for a moment he could not speak, so he stroked her soft brown hair. “I meant to build you a fine house with a long dinner table.”

She smiled, entering into the spirit of the daydream. “And you’ll sit at one end of the long table, and me at the other. And all up and down the table, our kids will sit, the kids I’m going to give you.”

He imagined the scene and enjoyed it. “And we’ll be prosperous, with lots of good things on the table and plenty left over for friends to come to dinner.”

“And someday, our kids and grandkids will sit at that same table, so that even when we’re dead and gone, why, we’ll be there in spirit every time they gather ’round that long table. They’ll sense our presence long after we’re gone. We ought to have a lot of children, Joe, that’s what life’s all about.”

He took one of her little work-worn hands in his and kissed the palm. “It don’t matter to me if there’s no kids, honey. But someday, you’ll have help around the house and a nice buggy to drive to church on Sunday.”

She laughed and kissed him. “Every man ought to have a son, Joe. Someday, God willin’, I’ll give you mine.”

“I’d like that, Annie. A son who has your big gray eyes, your smile.” And he began to sing softly to her in his fine tenor voice.
“Like dew on the gowan lying, is the fa’ o’ her fairy feet, and like winds in summer sighing, her voice is low and sweet. Her voice is low and sweet, and she’s a’ the world to me, and for bonnie Annie Laurie, I’d lay me down and dee.”

Tears came to her eyes as he sang to her, and she reached up and patted his cheek. “You were my first man, Joe McBride, my only man, and I love you so! Your name will be the last on my lips the day I die, I promise you that.”

“Such sad talk!” he scoffed. “We got years ahead of us, girl. We’re gonna be two old people sittin’ at that long table eatin’ with all the generations, rockin’ on the porch of that ranchhouse when I get it built and fixed up good and proper for you. Oh, it’ll be fine watching our kids grow up, and then there’ll be grandkids and great-grandkids. . . .”

“Oh, you make it sound so grand,” she laughed, and pulled him down to her.

In her arms, he could forget the rough times, the land that would only grow sagebrush and cactus no matter how hard he tried.
Even the squalid little soddie became a mansion with her in his arms
, he thought as he kissed her and she smiled up at him again. How could he ever have thought her plain when that smile turned her small face into such glowing beauty?

She snuggled against him as he kissed her. “I’m lucky to have you, Joe. You was so handsome and all the girls wanting to marry you.”

“No, I’m the lucky one,” he protested, and he opened her blouse and kissed her breasts. He was a proud, vain man maybe, but he was pleased that his bride was a virgin, that no man had ever touched her but him. Somehow, that was terribly important to him. And they’d come to Texas because there was no future for almost illiterate, poor people in Kentucky unless they wanted to go into the mines as the generation before them had.

“Remember,” she murmured as he undressed her, “you got to get over to the Adams’s ranch late this evening to get that new cow he’s gonna let us have on credit.”

“Plenty of time for that. I want to make love to my wife first.” He kissed her.

“Don’t think old Adams would have let us have it,” Annie smiled, “but his homely daughter, Hannah, has taken such a shine to you!”

“How you talk, girl!” He tickled her and they rolled on the old straw-stuffed mattress in merriment. “Hannah Adams is so sour-faced her daddy’d have to hang a porkchop around her neck to get a hound to lick her face!”

“Well, her pa’s big spread and money is better than a porkchop,” Annie laughed. “She’d take you if she could get shet of me.”

He caught her in his arms, kissing all the way down her neck. “Don’t you worry about that,” he whispered against her skin. “Annie Laurie McBride, you ain’t never gonna get shet of this ol’ Kentucky boy!”

He had made leisurely love to Annie, not realizing then that it was the very last time he would ever hold her in his arms. That after tonight, he would never see her again. If he had realized that those few hours were going to be their very last, he would have done things different, told her all the things he’d always meant to tell her about how much he loved her. But like too many people, he was awkward and shy with words, holding them in his heart until some future time.
Only there would never be a future time.

He had wanted Annie to accompany him to the Adams spread, but she wanted to do some sewing and it was a long, hot ride. Besides, she said, winking at him, she thought with his handsome charm, Hannah would see they got a better deal on the milk cow if Annie didn’t come.

The last time he ever saw her, she stood in the doorway in her blue homespun dress and waved as he drove away in the wagon.

He looked back. “Give me a smile, Annie Girl!”

And she smiled in a way that lit up her face, brightened his heart. “I still intend to give you a son someday; see if I don’t!” she called, and laughed.

He waved back. “We’ll start on that when I get back from the Adams place.”

“Oh, you!”

He smiled, capturing her small form forever in his memory as she stood in that doorway. Then not realizing what the future held, he turned and drove away, whistling under his breath.
“Her brow is like the snowdrift, her throat is like the swan, her face it is the fairest that e’er the sun shone on. . . .”

Joe cleared his throat, wiped his eyes.

“What’s the matter?” Trask asked with annoyance.

“Nothing,” Joe said. “Just a little dust from the road blowing in my eyes, that’s all.”

And now Annie’s son was coming to kill him with all the cold-blooded premeditation twenty-four years of hate had built in the boy. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, that was what the boy wanted, and he couldn’t blame him. Would this Maverick believe Joe if he told him he’d thought Annie dead? If the boy knew about the faceless body Hannah had identified as the missing Annie while Joe rode the outlaw trail with Slade, trying desperately to raise the ransom money?

He’d ask Mr. Adams to loan him the money, of course, but that old rich rancher had whined ’bout hard times, not looking Joe in the eye. . . .

He had married Hannah as that old man lay dying. He knew it was a mistake deep in his heart, but she loved him so and he’d realized now the value of having plenty of money. Being poor was the worst thing in the world.

Joe soon discovered it wasn’t. Being caught in a marriage with a woman he didn’t, couldn’t love, was even worse. His only happiness was the daughter Hannah had given him—Cayenne. It was only after Hannah’s death that Joe found comfort in religion.

Now as the buggy bumped over the uneven road toward the ranch, Joe thought about Maverick again.
Revenge.
The scriptures said, “Vengeance is mine, says the Lord, I shall repay.” But he was human and frail enough to want to live to see his daughters grown. Well, maybe Lynnie’s wire would get there before Cayenne left Wichita. How was he to know? He wasn’t even sure what he would do if Maverick ever confronted him. Even if his crippled hands could pull a trigger, could he really bring himself to do it?

Send me a sign, O, great Jehovah, he prayed as they drove toward the ranch. Send me a sign so that I may know the outcome, that I may do Thy will. . . .

A shadow passed between him and the hot sun, and he looked up, startled.

“Papa, what a beautiful pair of eagles flyin’ overhead.” Lynnie jumped up and down in her excitement, making the seat bounce. “They’re circlin’ the Lazy M ranch house, all free and soaring as high as a soul gone to heaven!”

Eagles. Joe smiled. He’d always liked eagles. But if it was any kind of sign from God, blamed if he could figure out what it meant. Would he even know the sign if God finally sent one?

Trask belched. “If I had me a rifle here, I’d shoot both them birds outa the sky,” he growled. “Ain’t got the range with a six-gun.”

“Oh, shut up, Trask,” Joe said with the sudden spirit and temper of the old days. “You always did begrudge any living creature a little happiness. The eagles aren’t hurting anyone.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Trask said. “The Injuns, now, they think eagles is powerful medicine, spirit animals.”

Joe didn’t want to think about Indians. He’d come home from the Adams’s with the new cow that evening to find his place in flames, most of the livestock lying dead with arrows stuck in them.

Had it really been more than a quarter of a century ago?
Of course it had.
Not a day passed that he didn’t remember those last moments, blame himself for not insisting Annie accompany him. He should never have left her alone. If he’d been there, the Comanche might have killed him but they’d never have carried her off while he had strength to pull a trigger.

Then the offer had come through a trader. Joe had no money to buy the weapons, the supplies the warriors offered to trade for his Annie. He had to get money, would do anything to obtain it. Maybe if he could raise the money quickly, the braves wouldn’t rape her and pass her around as they so often did. He’d seen white women returned and turned away by their husbands. He’d seen others who’d gone insane from what they’d endured. He couldn’t bear the thought of any man touching his innocent Annie Girl.

Neither old Adams nor Ogle would lend him the money. He was too distraught to even think at the time that Hannah might have had anything to do with that. Later, word seemed to get around quickly that there was a desperate young man armed with a Kentucky long rifle who could outshoot anybody on the frontier and would do anything for money.

Bill Slade and his partners had approached him in front of a backwoods saloon. “Are you as good with that rifle as everyone says you are?”

“Best shot in Kentucky,” Joe said, and he was. When a man was poor and powder was dear, he learned to make every shot count.

Slade leaned against a post and studied him. “You interested in making quick money, lots of it?”

Joe’s heart quickened. It had been a week since Annie’d been taken. He had to ransom her, had to. “Mister, I’ll do anything if the money’s right.”

“There’s a bank in St. Joe that’s supposed to be full of money. . . . ”

“Now, wait a minute, I didn’t know you was talkin’ about robbin’ banks. . . .”

“My gal’s been wheedling information out of the teller,” Slade grinned. “It’s a big bank that’s handlin’ all the settlers’ money as they head for the Oregon Trail. Your cut’ll be big,” Slade promised. “More money than you ever seen in your whole life.”

And in the end, Joe had gone with the three. Slade had a girl, a pretty girl named Molly, who’d come from a tumbledown shack on the outskirts of St. Joe. If he hadn’t been so in love with Annie, Molly might have turned his head. The pretty girl-child was younger than his Annie, probably not more than fifteen or sixteen.

He remembered now as he rode along in the buggy that Molly’s black hair had been cropped short and uneven when he’d met her at the hideout in St. Joe.

“What happened to your hair?” he asked.

The pretty brunette blushed, looking away. Obviously she had been very vain about her dark, thick hair. “My old lady. When she caught me out with Bill, she hacked my hair off, called me a Jezebel.”

Slade laughed, tousling her hair with his hand. “Aw, it’ll grow, Molly. You got the prettiest hair I ever seen on a woman.