McKettrick's Choice (28 page)

Rafe, riding with Holt, reined his horse around and galloped back to keep Lorelei company a while, and she was poignantly grateful for his company. She couldn't see any sign of Indians, but she knew they were close by, watching, because the little hairs on her nape stood up.

“Tell me about the Triple M,” Lorelei said presently, like a child asking for a bedtime story.

Rafe gave her a sidelong look. “Maybe you'll see it yourself, one day,” he said.

“That's not very likely,” Lorelei answered. “Start at the very beginning.”

Rafe chuckled, but there was a certain sadness in the sound. “Once upon a time,” he began, “a real mean hombre named Angus McKettrick said goodbye to Texas and headed north….”

T
HEY WERE LESS
than a day out of San Antonio when the attack finally came, and it was almost a relief to Holt. Waiting for that first skin-peeling shriek had his nerves jangling and his belly clenched, and he was ready for the fight. What he
wasn't
ready for was Rafe taking the first arrow, straight through his left arm.

The two of them had ridden ahead of the herd, to scout a rocky area for Comanches, and they found them, all right. The bastards had left their ponies out of sight somewhere, crouching behind boulders, and now that Rafe was hit, they came screaming from their hidey-holes, shrill enough to split a man's eardrums. Knife blades glinted in the dusty heat.

Rafe sprang off his horse, arrow and all, and his .45 was already spitting smoke and bullets before he hit the ground. Holt stayed right with him; they dove for cover and kept shooting. The panicked geldings took off on a dead run for the party traveling behind them, and Holt spared a breath to pray they'd make it.

An Indian leaped up onto the rock in front of them, blade raised, face contorted with the kind of reckless rage Comanches were noted for. Rafe put a bullet through his
stomach while Holt reloaded his pistol. A slight sound behind him made him whirl and fire twice. Two dead braves fell on top of them, one with the top of his head gone, the other shot through the heart.

Rafe gritted his teeth from the pain as he shook free of the bodies, but he didn't favor his wounded arm. He didn't seem aware of it.

War cries ripped the air, underlaid by the thunder of approaching hooves and the hiss and ping of rifle shells. Holt would welcome any help he could get, but he hoped to hell the whole crew wasn't riding to the rescue, leaving the herd unprotected. There were bound to be more Comanches closing in from the rear, and
they
would be on horseback, ready to drive off as many cattle as they could.

Weaving through all that ruckus, Holt was sure he heard the braying of a mule.

He hoped that didn't mean what he thought it did.

The Indians were out in the open now, coming at him and Rafe from every direction. They fought back, each one covering the other while they reloaded, and reloaded again.

A shotgun boomed, and one of the braves flew backward off a high rock, arms outspread. After that, it rained bullets. The battle seemed to go on forever, but it probably lasted about fifteen minutes. At the end of the fury, a peculiar, reverberating silence fell.

Rafe slid down the rock, sat with his back to it, sweating and gasping for breath. He was feeling that arrow now, that was for damn sure.

Holt risked raising his head for a look and saw dead Indians everywhere. John, the Captain and Frank were there, on horseback, surveying the carnage, rifles ready for any fresh trouble that might happen to crop up.
And with them, riding that damnable mule of hers, was Lorelei.

Holt felt a surge of horror, and something else he couldn't identify, so powerful that it made him feel light-headed.

“Rafe's hit,” he told the men, but he was looking at Lorelei. He couldn't take his eyes off her, for fear she'd topple forward with an arrow in her back.

Whoops and more gunfire sounded in the distance; he'd been right, for all the good it did him. The Comanches were helping themselves to the herd, and the wranglers were fighting back.

“Get back there and lend them cowboys a hand,” John told the Captain and Frank. They hesitated, took a last look around, and rode out.

Lorelei jumped down off that mule and ran past Holt to drop to her knees next to Rafe. She dabbed at his wound with a wadded up bandana and asked the bone-stupidest question Holt had ever heard.

“Does it hurt?”

Pale as death and bleeding like a speared hog, Rafe chuckled. “Indeed it does, Miss Lorelei,” he said. “Indeed it does.”

Holt got Lorelei by the arm and hurled her back. While she was still regaining her balance, he yanked off his belt and wrapped it around Rafe's upper arm for a tourniquet. Rafe gasped when he pulled it tight.

John loomed over them both, handed Rafe a flask. “You better take a good dose of that,” he said.

Rafe nodded and unscrewed the lid with his teeth while Holt assessed the damage. The flint arrowhead and a good four inches of the shaft were sticking out the back of Rafe's shirtsleeve. There was no telling how badly he
was hurt, but one thing was for sure. The next couple of minutes were going to be worse than the initial injury.

“Least it isn't my gun arm,” Rafe said, and downed some more whiskey.

“I'm sorry about this, Rafe,” Holt told him, and he wasn't just talking about what he had to do next. It was his fault that Rafe was hurt.

“Just do it,” Rafe ground out. “And do it quick.”

Holt snapped the arrowhead off, then wrenched the shaft out with his other hand. Rafe didn't make a sound, but Lorelei let out a scream shrill enough to wake two or three dead Comanches. Blood spurted from Rafe's wound, and Holt gave the tourniquet another hard tug to stanch it.

Rafe finally passed out.

Neither Holt nor John spoke as they hoisted Rafe to his feet. He stumbled between them, his head rolling on his shoulders, and came to enough to stand. With help from both men, he managed to gain the saddle of John's mount, the spotted pony Melina usually rode.

John put a foot in the stirrup and swung up behind him, reaching around Rafe's slumped frame to grab the reins.

Holt turned on Lorelei then, and her eyes widened in her dusty, tear-streaked face when he stalked toward her.

“Get on that goddamned mule!” he told her, through his teeth.

She backed away from him, her eyes bigger still, but there was a tilt to her chin that said she wouldn't give much more ground. “Will Rafe be all right?” she whispered.

Holt stopped, bent to snatch his hat from the ground.
Rafe's was a few feet away, so he got that, too. Handed it to Lorelei.
“Get on the mule,”
he repeated.

She obeyed, which was a wonder in and of itself, and clung to the saddle horn with both hands while he mounted behind her. “Why are you so angry?” she inquired, as he reached around her to take the reins and steer the animal back toward the herd. The gunfire on the other side of the herd had died down by then; he hoped that meant the Comanches were on the run, but it could just as well be that the wranglers were all dead or wounded.

He gave Seesaw the heels of his boots, wishing he'd worn spurs. “It's bad enough that my brother took an arrow,” he said, letting the words grind past her right ear. “You could have been killed out here, or taken captive, which would have been a whole lot worse.”

He felt her shiver against his chest. “I know you said to stay with the wagon if the Indians came,” she said, keeping her face forward and dragging each word up out of some deep part of herself, “but when we heard the shots, knowing you and Rafe were out here—well—I couldn't bring myself to hide.” Her spine straightened, but she still didn't look back at him, which was a good thing, because he wouldn't have wanted her to see his face right then. “I had to
do
something, Holt. Even if it was wrong.”

He hoped she didn't sense the softening in him. He was trail boss, and he couldn't afford to show weakness. Up until that moment, he hadn't realized he knew
how
to let down his guard, especially in the wake of a life-and-death fight like the one he'd just been through.

“When I give an order,” he rasped, as furious with himself as he was with Lorelei, “I expect it to be obeyed. Is that understood?”

She didn't answer.

The herd was up ahead, and a quick count showed that all the wranglers were still intact. The wagon bristled with arrows, though, and there was no sign of the other women, or the dog.

Holt's belly clenched up again.

“Lorelei,” he prompted, in a growl.

She turned her head, searched his face. “I don't work for you, Holt McKettrick,” she said. She sounded tough, but her lower lip wobbled.

He might have laughed out loud if his brother hadn't been shot.

“While you're traveling with this herd, you
will
do as I say,” he told her. The softness was gone; he felt hard from the center of his soul.

He quickened the mule's pace again and felt as though he'd just tossed back a double-shot of rotgut whiskey, the relief was so intense, when the other side of the supply wagon came in sight. Rafe was lying on the ground, with a saddle for a pillow, while Heddy and Tillie knelt on either side of him. Tillie stood a little distance away, Pearl in her arms, the dog panting at her side.

“Thank God,” Lorelei whispered, on a long breath.

“They're all right.”

Holt rode up to the little gathering beside the wagon, hooked an arm around Lorelei's waist and removed her none too gently from the mule's back. She stumbled slightly before getting her footing, and glared up at him in humiliated fury.

“We'll see if the same can be said of the herd,” he said, and reined Seesaw around. Off to his left, some thousand yards distant, he saw the Captain headed in on horseback, leading Holt's gelding and Rafe's, one on either side. It was another weight off his mind, but he
kept reviewing everything that could have happened to Lorelei, riding into the middle of a fight like that, so he didn't feel one whit better.

It turned out his count was wrong. One of the wranglers had taken a header from his horse when the second contingent of Comanches came after the herd, and had broken his left leg. John and a couple of the other men were loading him up in the wagon.

Holt heard his pa's voice in the back of his mind.
God looks after fools, drunks and cowboys, boy,
Angus had said one day when the two of them were rounding up strays on the Triple M.
One time or another, I've been all three, so I'm obliged to Him for the favor.

Holt spotted Frank and trotted the mule over to him. There were half a dozen dead Indians scattered on the ground; the others had gotten away. It was hard to tell how many there had been from the tracks, since the herd had churned up plenty of ground in all the excitement.

Kahill joined them before Holt could answer Frank's immediate, “Your brother going to make it?”

Kahill tugged at his dusty hat brim and gave a cocky grin. “Good to see you're still in the saddle, Boss,” he drawled. “Hope your being on that mule doesn't mean your horse got killed.”

“Traveler is fine,” Holt said, and shifted his gaze to Frank. “Rafe's in for a hard time. I mean to go back and make sure the bleeding's stopped, and get him to that pint-sized doctor in San Antonio first thing.”

Frank nodded, resting on the pommel of his saddle and watching Kahill with narrowed eyes. He was breathing hard, and his shirt was drenched with sweat.

“You hurt, Frank?” Holt asked.

Frank shook his head. Grinned. “No more than I was before this whole thing started,” he said.

Holt turned back to Kahill. “They get any of the herd?”

Kahill shook his head. “Not so much as a hind-hoof,” he said. “Might be they'll come back and make another try, though. They'll have blood in their eyes, those Comanches, after losing so many braves.” He looked around, taking in the scattered bodies. “We gonna take the time to bury them, Boss?”

“As far as I'm concerned,” Holt said, checking the position of the sun, “the buzzards can have them. We'll be lucky to make John's place before nightfall. Let's get this herd moving.”

“You're not worried those red devils will come after us again?” Kahill pressed, though he straightened in the saddle and took a firmer grip on his reins. He didn't look as if he had an opinion on the prospect, one way or the other, but the fact that he'd asked showed a sensible concern.

“If I thought worrying would get us anywhere,” Holt retorted, “I might take it up.” Kahill rode off to get the wranglers back to their positions and prod the milling cattle into motion, and Holt turned his full attention to Frank. “That kid with the broken leg. He's got a rough ride ahead of him, like Rafe. John'll keep an eye on them, but he has the wagon to drive, and a peck of women to boot, so I'd appreciate it if you'd stick close by, in case there's more trouble.”

Frank nodded, watching Holt closely. “You all right,
amigo?
” he asked quietly.

Holt met his gaze. “I'm not real sure,” he said. There wasn't much Frank didn't know about him, so he saw no point in embroidering the truth. “When that arrow hit Rafe—”

Frank rode near enough to slap him on the shoulder.
“Better change horses, Boss,” he said. “Your woman will be wanting her mule back.”

Holt laughed, and it felt good. “If I wring her neck one of these days,” he said, “will you testify that I was with you the whole time?”

Frank's eyes twinkled. “Swear it on a stack of Bibles,” he said.

 

H
OLT RODE OVER
to the wagon and looked inside at Rafe and the young cowboy with the broken leg. Lorelei wanted to tell him to get off her mule, but she didn't figure she was in any position to issue such a challenge, so she bit her lower lip and held her tongue.

He spoke to the wounded men, Rafe first, and then the wrangler, but his voice was low, and strain though she did, Lorelei didn't catch a word of the conversation.

Even when the Captain brought the Appaloosa to him, and he moved from one animal to the other without setting foot on the ground, Holt didn't spare her so much as a glance. She waited until he'd ridden away to stomp over and get on Seesaw. One of the wranglers led Rafe's horse and the injured cowboy's, while John drove the wagon, Tillie and Pearl wedged between him and Heddy in the box. Melina reclaimed her pony, and soon joined Lorelei as the party moved forward in a storm of noise and dust.