McKettrick's Choice (5 page)

G
UILT, AND A NEED
for some errand to quiet her mind and keep her out of the house for a while, sent Lorelei toward St. Ambrose's, an old mission at the edge of town. The walk was long and the heat insufferable, but when she reached the shady plot where her mother and William rested side by side, she found some solace.

Selma Hanson Fellows's marker was a marble angel with a trumpet raised to its stone lips. The angel's eyes gazed with longing into the far reaches of eternity, and the mold and lichen in the crevices of its finely chiseled face and the folds of its flowing gown gave it an eerie dimension.

Lorelei kissed the tips of her fingers and set them against the
S
in her mother's name. A gentle breeze wafted through the cemetery, cooling her scalp.

She searched her mind for even the ghost of a memory of her lost mother and waited, but nothing came.

William's grave was more modest, with a smaller angel to oversee it, but the words carved in the granite base had a poignancy that Selma's lacked.

 

BELOVED SON OF ALEXANDER FELLOWS MY SOUL PERISHED WITH HIM.

 

Lorelei pulled out her handkerchief, for the second time that morning, and touched it to her eyes. The judge had stayed drunk for a solid month after William's funeral, night and day. She remembered his ragged beard, his unkempt hair, standing up in ridges from the repeated thrust of his fingers. The sweat-and-tobacco stench of his clothes, underlaid by the subtler smell of despair.

“You,” her father had muttered once, when she'd crept into his study and tried to crawl into his lap. He'd pushed her away with a rough motion of one hand and a surly, “If one of you had to die, why did it have to be him? My only son. My only hope.”

Lorelei wrapped both arms tightly around her middle and lowered her head, remembering. That day, in the space of an instant, Alexander Fellows had stopped being “Papa” and become the Judge. They'd been on opposite shores of an invisible river ever since, and if there was a ford or a bridge, Lorelei had yet to find it.

Except for Angelina, and a few school chums and faraway cousins, she'd been alone ever since. Until Michael had come along.

A sob rose in her throat. She swallowed it with a painful intake of breath.

Determinedly, she pulled herself together. There was no profit in weakness, no value in looking back.

Michael was buried in the Chandler plot, among his own people—parents, grandparents, a sister who'd died in infancy, numerous aunts and uncles.

Lorelei made her way to him and sat down on a bench nearby. Michael's final resting place was a simple one, with only a stone cross to commemorate him.

In the depths of her heart, Lorelei thought she heard him speak her name.

 

C
ROUCHING
, Holt laid Lizzie's flowers within the circle of white stones enclosing Olivia's gravesite. A slab, long-fallen and half-covered by the encroaching grass, bore only her first name and the date of her death.

The flowers were yellow roses, heady with scent. He'd seen them from the street, flourishing in a garden, shortly after leaving Lorelei under the oak tree, and stopped to knock on the front door of the house and ask if he might buy a dozen or so.

The old woman who'd answered had regarded him solemnly. “Are they for a lady?” she'd asked, when she was through sizing him up. He was glad he'd shaved and put on good clothes.

“Yes,” Holt had said, without hesitation, for Olivia
had
been a lady, in every sense of the word. And she'd given him Lizzie, the single greatest gift of his life.

“Reckon she must be right pretty, if a fellow like you wants to give her roses.”

Holt had smiled, albeit sadly. “She was,” he said. “Prettiest woman in San Antonio. Olivia died of a fever a few years back.”

Lorelei had slipped into his mind then, out of nowhere, but he'd set her firmly aside.

“I'll cut them for you,” the woman said.

Holt had reached for his wallet.

The old lady shook her head. “It's a sorry day when I have to take money for a few flowers,” she said. Then she'd slipped back into the cool dimness of the house, returning momentarily wearing a sun bonnet and carrying a pair of shears.

Now, in the graveyard, Holt arranged the flowers with distracted care.

Lorelei was seated on a bench, not twenty yards from
him, her hands clasped in her lap. The breeze danced in the tendrils of dark hair curling at her nape.

If she saw him, she'd think he was following her. Probably go straight to her father, the judge, and lodge a complaint.

He might have smiled at the image if he hadn't been putting flowers on Olivia's grave, and if Lorelei hadn't looked as though she might splinter into tiny shards at any moment, like a vase irretrievably broken, caught in that tenuous place between wholeness and utter disintegration.

He lowered his head, laid a hand on Olivia's stone.
I'm sorry,
he told her, in the privacy of his mind.
I'd have come back for you, if I'd known about Lizzie. Wouldn't have left in the first place, if I'd had any sense.

His eyes took to burning, and he rubbed them with a thumb and forefinger.

Some sound, or perhaps a scent or a movement, made him look up.

Lorelei stood opposite him, surveying him with a slight frown marring her otherwise perfect forehead.

“You loved her,” she surmised.

He nodded. “Not enough,” he replied hoarsely.

She bent down, peered at the marker. “Olivia,” she mused quietly. “I knew her. She was a fine seamstress.” Their gazes met across the narrow circle of stones. Lorelei looked thoughtful. “She had a young daughter. Lindy? Libby?”

Holt got to his feet. He'd left his hat with the horse, perched on the saddle horn, but he reached up as if to touch the brim before remembering that. “Lizzie,” he said.

Lorelei absorbed that. “Yours?” she asked, very quietly, and after a very long time.

Holt nodded. He would have told just about anybody else that it was none of their business who had fathered Lizzie, but it seemed a natural question coming from Lorelei, though he couldn't have said why.

“I see,” Lorelei said, and Holt feared that she
did
see, all too clearly. Olivia had had to make her own way in the world, and Lizzie's way as well, with only the help of her sister, Geneva. After Olivia's passing, Geneva had managed to track Holt to the Arizona Territory, and she'd been on her way to Indian Rock, the nearest town to the Triple M, to leave Lizzie with him, when Jack Barrett had come upon their stagecoach, broken down alongside the road, and decided on robbery. In the course of that, he'd killed both Geneva and the driver. Holt's brother, Jeb, and the town marshal, Sam Fee, had come upon the stage the next morning, and found Lizzie there, alone and scared.

Holt set his back teeth. It had fallen to Jeb to deal with Barrett, when the time came, but every time he thought of that night, Holt wished he'd been the one to put the bastard out of his misery.

“I won't keep you, Mr. McKettrick,” Lorelei said, and by the look on her face, he knew she'd judged him and found him wanting. He'd left his woman and his daughter to fend for themselves, that was the fact of the matter. There wasn't much he could say in his own defense.

He simply nodded, and watched as Lorelei turned and walked away.

He wasn't given to excuses or explanations.

So why did he want to hurry after her and make some kind of case for himself? Say he hadn't known about Lizzie—that he'd always meant to patch things up with Olivia but had never found the time. Never gotten past his stupid pride.

He swore under his breath. If his hat hadn't been with the horse, he'd have wrenched it off his head and slapped it against one thigh in sheer aggravation.

J
OHN
C
AVANAGH
felt a prickle trip down his spine, the same one he'd felt back in '64, just before a rebel cannonball took off a piece of his thigh. He looked around for Tillie—saw her on the other side of the draw, bouncing along on the back of her mule, with that worthless yellow dog bringing up the rear.

She was probably out of rifle range, so he didn't shout a warning, though one sure as hell surged up into the back of his throat, bitter and raw.

Holt was in town, trying, among other things, to hire a lawyer for Gabe and the new man, Kahill, was rounding up strays. The herd, once two hundred head of cattle strong, had dwindled down to less than fifty, by John's reckoning, and they needed every one they could drive out of the brush.

The prickle came again. Somebody was watching him, from someplace nearby, and probably looking down the barrel of a gun.

He drew back on the reins, looked around.

The rider sat at the top of the draw, under a stand of oak trees.

He recognized the man by his shape and bulk. Templeton.

John spat, ran one arm across his mouth and headed straight for the trespassing sum-bitch.

Templeton waited, the barrel of his rifle resting easy across the front of his saddle. He wore a fancy bowler hat and the kind of duds a Texan would get married—or buried—in but never take out of mothballs otherwise. His sandy mustache twitched slightly, and he shouldered away the fly buzzing around his muttonchop whiskers. Something meant to pass as a smile played on his bow-shaped mouth.

“Afternoon, John,” he said. His accent was English, and right fancy. Better suited to a tea party in some castle than the Texas range.

John let his gaze travel to the rifle. “You hunting something?” he asked.

“This is rough country,” Templeton replied smoothly.

“A man can't be too careful.”

“That's for sure and certain,” John answered, resettling his hat. The band itched, soaked with sweat. “I don't reckon you'd mistake any of my cattle for game. Fine sportsman like you.”

Templeton heaved a great sigh. “The poor beasts look pretty scrawny to me,” he said, with mock regret. “Hair, hide, hooves and horns, that's about all you've got here. Not worth driving to market, as far as I can see.”

“Then I reckon you ain't looked far enough,” John replied evenly.

The Englishman spared a thin smile. “I hear you sold out. I'm disappointed, John. I would have given you a good price.”

John smiled back and spat again. “I'd sooner deed this place over to the devil,” he said. “And you were planning on buying this spread from the bank, pennies on the dollar.”

Templeton shifted in the saddle. Cradled the rifle as gently as a babe just drawing its first breath. “That fellow McKettrick. Is he really your son?”

“Good as,” John said.

“I've been expecting him to pay me a call.”

“He's had better things to do.”

With a mocking air, Templeton put a hand to his heart, fingers splayed, as though to cover a fresh wound. The rifle barely moved. The Englishman's smile sent that prickle rolling along John's spine again. “Now that was an unkind thing to say,” Templeton drawled. His gaze moved past John, tracking Tillie and the mule in the distance, like a snake about to spring at a field mouse. John's aging heart lurched over a beat. “Looks as if you're pretty hard up for ranch hands.”

John sat up straighter in the saddle and fondled the handle of the .45 strapped to his hip just to draw Templeton's eyes back to him and, therefore, off Tillie. “That's the truth,” he allowed. “Holt's hiring, though. Like as not, he'll have that bunkhouse filled in no time.”

“You tell your…
son
that I'd like a word with him. I'll be receiving whenever he chooses to make a visit.” Templeton paused, smiled at John's .45, like it was a toy whittled out of wood instead of a Colt, and sheathed his rifle. “Best if it's soon, though. I'm an impatient man.”

“‘Receiving,' is it?” John countered lightly. “Sounds pretty fancy.”

Templeton was watching Tillie again. “Just tell him what I said.”

“Oh, I surely will.” John maneuvered his horse to block Templeton's view of the girl. “I doubt Holt'll take kindly to it, though. My guess is, he'll wait for you to come to him.”

Templeton reined his fine Irish horse away, toward
home. “He won't like it if I do,” he said, and before John could answer, he rode off into the trees.

John gulped back the bile that rose into his throat, then turned and headed down the hillside, toward the draw. “Tillie!” he called. “You get yourself back to the house now, and start supper!”

 

G
ABE STOOD
with his back to the bars of the new cell, staring out the window. The rasping of a saw rode the air, along with the steady tattoo of hammers. The gallows was well underway.

“I don't suppose you've heard back from the governor,” Gabe said, without turning around.

Holt took off his hat, ran a hand through his hair. “No,” he admitted. “I stopped by the telegraph office on my way here.”

“Most likely that wire never went out, any more than the one Frank sent to you did.”

“I'll ride up to Austin if I don't hear by tomorrow,” Holt said. He felt every blow of those hammers as if they'd struck his bare bones instead of the new and fragrant lumber of a hangman's platform.

Gabe didn't speak. It was clear he wasn't holding out much hope.

“Is there anything in particular you want me to do?” Holt asked quietly. “Besides get you out of here, I mean?”

At last, Gabe faced him. “I've been worrying about Melina. Somebody ought to tell her that I'm not staying away on purpose.” He paused, rubbed his chin with one hand. “She's carrying my baby, Holt.”

Holt wanted to avert his eyes, because his friend's pain was a hard thing to look upon, but he didn't. “Where will I find her?”

“Waco,” Gabe answered, relaxing a little. “Her last name is Garcia. Last I knew, she was doing laundry for a rich rancher's wife. Parkinson, I think they call themselves.”

“Done,” Holt said.

Gabe's throat worked. “If anything happens—”

“Nothing,” Holt interrupted, “is going to happen. But I'll tell her, Gabe.”

“She'll want to come here, to San Antonio. You've got to talk her out of that.”

Holt's grin felt more like a grimace. “You don't know much about women if you think I could say anything to change her mind, once it's made up.”

Gabe prowled across the space between them, gripped the bars in both hands. The skin of his face was taut, and his eyes glittered with savage conviction. “There's nothing for her here,” he said. “They'll make a whore of her.”

“And you think I'd stand by and see that happen?”

Gabe let out his breath, nodded toward the other end of the corridor, where the jailer waited. “I had a hundred dollars when they brought me here. They took it, along with my knife and my boots. You get that money and fetch it to Melina.”

Holt nodded, wishing there was more he could say, more he could do.

“How's John?” Gabe asked, and the change of subject was welcome.

“He's holding up,” Holt answered. “I hired a man yesterday and sent six more out to the place today.” He paused, unsettled. “You remember that kid who used to tend the horses back when we rode with the Rangers? Mac Kahill?”

Gabe hesitated, thinking, then said, “Sure. Sneaky
little bastard. I caught him going through my saddlebags one time.”

Holt reached back, rubbed the nape of his neck. “He's working for me now.”

Gabe narrowed his eyes. “You watch him, Holt. Watch him real close.”

Holt didn't reckon he'd have time to watch anybody, real close or otherwise, with all he had to do to get that ranch back on sound footing. There were cattle to buy, which meant he'd have to run a herd up from Mexico, and he needed at least another dozen men for a drive like that. He ought to find Frank, and go to Austin to meet with the governor. And then there was Melina, up in Waco.

All the while, Gabe's life was getting shorter with every tick of the clock in the town square.

In the back of his mind, Holt heard Angus McKettrick's voice.
It's there to do, boy. Best leave off worrying and get on with the business at hand.

God, what he wouldn't give to have his pa and brothers with him right now.

“It might be a few days before I can get back here to see you,” he said aloud. “You getting the meals from the hotel?”

Gabe nodded, managed a semblance of the old grin. “It's a lot of food, Holt. I reckon I can count on that coffin being a real tight fit.”

“You won't be needing a coffin,” Holt said. “Not for a long while, anyway.”

Gabe studied him. “You losing your sense of humor, old friend?”

“That's a peculiar question, coming from you. Talking about coffins, and your woman ending up a whore.”

The other man sighed, ran his palms down the legs
of his buckskin trousers. “Old Cap'n Jack, he'd have a thing or two to say about all this, wouldn't he?”

The mention of the seasoned Ranger cheered Holt considerably. “He surely would,” he said. “And most of it would take the paint off a wall.”

Gabe gave a low guffaw. “Yes, sir. Call us a pair of down-in-the-mouth yellow-bellied tit babies, probably. Give us the sole of his boot.”

Holt laughed, heartened. He put a hand through the bars, gripped Gabe's shoulder. “Don't pay too much mind to that gallows out there,” he counseled. “One day real soon, we'll burn it for firewood and dance around the flames, whooping like Comanches.”

“‘Like Comanches'?” Gabe retorted. “I
am
a Comanche, White Eyes.”

“Then act like one,” Holt said, turning to go.

“Son of a bitch,” Gabe called, in cheerful farewell. Holt laughed.

It took some doing, but he got Gabe's hundred dollars out of the jailer.

He'd stop by the ranch, to look in on John and Tillie and the yellow dog, then ride for Waco. With luck, he'd be there by mid-day tomorrow.