Westward Hope

by Bailey, Kathleen D. ;

  “I wouldn’t do that.” The older man had a pistol trained on Michael. “And the rest of you better drop your guns.”

  Michael scowled at him as he tossed his handgun to the dirt.

  Jenny hesitated, and then pulled her weapon from her holster.

  Pace threw down his pistol and his rifle.

  Michael stayed at her side. “Did they touch you?” he ground out.

  “Not yet.”

  “Because I’ll kill them if they did.” He leveled a glare at the older man.

  The man pushed his hat back but kept the pistol trained on Michael. “We’ve got no quarrel with you, Mick, and we got none with her. Let us get what we came for.”

  Though his hands remained steady, his voice changed as he looked beyond them to Jenny. “Hello, Jenny,” he said. “I’ve come for you.”

  But Jenny ignored him. Her back was straight, her voice calm as she looked past the older man to where Smith, frozen like a child in a “statues” game, stared back at her, the forgotten coffee pot splattering drops on the fire. “Hullo, Zach.”

  31

  If Michael had had time to think he would have found it funny.

  The man’s mouth hung open, like the trout Jenny had caught for yesterday’s supper. He stood there, the sun glinting off the forgotten tin coffeepot, suspended in the air.

  “Who is he?” Michael snapped from where he huddled next to Caroline.

  “He’s my brother. Or he was.”

  The coffeepot clattered to the ground, clinking against a rock like a gunshot in the canyon’s quiet.

  Zach Thatcher ignored it. As he moved forward his voice filled with wariness and wonder. “It is you.”

  “You must of known it was me when you planned this attack.” Oh, no love lost between these two. Had Jenny ever mentioned a brother?

  Zach shook his head, like Michael’s old hound on the farm back in Ireland when he came out of the creek. “I swear, Jenny, I didn’t. You had your back to me. And the hair. I thought you was a man. Only thing I saw was Midnight.”

  “Midnight?”

  “The stallion. My stallion.”

  She drew back a little as Zach came closer. “Where did you find him?” he asked.

  Jenny stroked Rebel’s mane marking her territory. “Livery stable in St. Joe.”

  Zach shook his head again. “I raised him from a foal. Best horse I ever had. Lost him in a poker game, and I been tryin’ to find him ever since. If I’d of known—”

  “Wouldn’t have done you any good. He’s mine now.”

  Zach reached up, just enough to touch Rebel’s mane, and the horse reared back. Zach’s blue eyes, so like Jenny’s, stared up at her, now pleading. “We could go halves, share him. I’d give you half the stud fee.”

  “Just like you shared before. When you sold the farm and kicked us all out.”

  Zach kept one eye on Rebel as he tried to placate her.

  Michael could have told him it wouldn’t work.

  “How’d you get all the way out here?” Zach asked. “Last time Billy saw you, you were working in town.”

  “I was a hired girl for the Pearsons.” Jenny scowled down at her brother. “But Mr. Pearson couldn’t keep his hands off me, so I decided to go into the saloon business and make some real money. It wasn’t much, but it was better than being his ‘girl.’ I still got pawed, but I didn’t have to change diapers or empty the slops.”

  Zach paled beneath his tan. “Jenny, if I’d of known—”

  “You didn’t care enough to find out. Let my friends go and I’ll be on my way with Rebel.”

  But Hiram Nelson had had enough. He shoved Zach aside. “Jenny, you’re coming with me. I came all this way to find you. I’ll set you up in your own place. Clothes, jewels. A carriage.”

  “Mr. Nelson, I’m not going back to the life.”

  With his free hand, he waved her objections away. The man’s eyes gleamed, feverish, feral. “Not like that. You won’t be a saloon girl, or a whore. I’m never sharing you again. You’ll be my mistress or my wife. I can’t live without you, Jenny. I love you.”

  “Mr. Nelson, you don’t know what love is and I’d appreciate it if you didn’t practice on me.”

  Pace draw closer.

  Zach was working it out in his mind. He glanced from Nelson to Jenny and back again. Understanding dawned along with horror. “You know each other. She’s the woman.”

  “She worked for me.”

  With a strangled roar, Zach tackled the older man. Nelson was lean and hard, in good shape for his age, but Zach was a farm boy and had the advantage of youth. They struggled in the dirt, with muffled curses.

  Jenny watched without expression.

  Zach was straddling Nelson, pounding his head into the dirt.

  Michael didn’t intervene. Let the fools destroy each other. They didn’t deserve Jenny or Rebel. Nelson’s eyes rolled back in his head and his fingers let go their grip on the pistol.

  Michael’s gaze met Caroline’s before he inched toward the battling men. He scuttled like a crab across the dirt. His hands closed around the butt of the gun.

  “I don’t think you’ll need that, boyo.”

  Two men stood with rifles poised. One waited on the bank above them and was silhouetted by the sun. The other blocked the only exit from the clearing.

  Zach and Nelson separated, breathing heavily.

  Nelson looked at the older Irish man. “About time you got here.”

  32

  Kelly and Kennedy.

  Michael closed his eyes for a heartbeat. But when he opened them, they were still there.

  Kelly, the younger, jumped down from the bank and kept his rifle trained on Michael. “Get away from the gun, Moriarty,” he ordered. “Stand up and put your hands behind your back. I’d shoot you as well as not, but I’m guessin’ you already knew that.”

  On legs that felt like lead, Michael left the pistol in the dirt and complied.

  Kennedy descended more slowly. With a jerk of his head to Jenny and Pace, he said, “Get down from your mounts.” When Jenny didn’t move, he struck her denim-covered leg with the butt of his rifle. “I said, get down.”

  Kelly chuckled, exposing his yellowed teeth. “Sure an’ it’s the pretty lady from the saloon. The one who lied to us.” He shoved her into the dirt. “You get to kneel.”

  Nelson and Zach stood with their arms folded.

  Instead of cringing, Nelson shrugged. “Don’t hurt her, Kelly,” was all he said.

  Out of habit, Michael glanced toward the passage they’d come through.

  Kennedy followed his glance and moved to block his vision. “Don’t think of it, Mickey,” he said. “There’s only one way out of here, and it’s through one of us.”

  A box canyon. Nobody ever said they were stupid.

  “Michael.” Caroline sounded near the end of her endurance. “Who are they?”

  His voice was directed at Caroline, but his eyes remained fixed on his old enemies. “They’re Aidan Kelly and Charlie Kennedy,” he said. “They’re the dirty hands of my English landlord. They harassed his tenants, flogged people he didn’t like, collected his rents, and kept some for themselves. They ‘tossed’ people’s cottages, and left them homeless. Most likely they tossed my family’s place.”

  Kelly spat on the ground. “‘Twas no more than they deserved. Irish swine.”

  With difficulty, Michael passed over the insult to his family. Caroline mattered now, and Jenny and Pace. With difficulty he refrained from reminding Kelly that he, too, was Irish.

  Kennedy jerked his head toward Caroline. “The lass here can go. And himself.” He gestured toward Pace, who stood tall and glowering over the huddled Jenny. “When we get what we came for.”

  “And what might that be?” Michael asked, though he was pretty sure he knew.

  Kennedy regarded him steadily. “The stallion for Smith. The blonde girl for Jones or Nelson, whatever his name be. And you for us.”

  He could
stall them, play for time. He could talk anyone into a corner. “‘Tis a wonder to me that you lads came halfway around the world for me.”

  “We were well paid,” Kennedy said. “And we’ll be paid even more when we bring you back. Mr. Hawthorne’s been seeking after you for four years. He’ll pay dearly for the murderer of his son.”

  “Alive?”

  Kennedy’s laugh was short and sharp. “No. Sure an’ we learned a few things on this trip. I’m thinking we’ll bring him your scalp, like the Indians do. ‘Tis easier to carry, and we don’t have to pay another ship’s fare.”

  They had tracked him through two countries and this wilderness, over two continents, across one ocean and three thousand miles.

  But he’d run so far away from them. He could almost have taken pleasure in setting them straight, if they hadn’t been planning to kill him. He stood, stretched a little, looked down into their leering faces. Small men and he didn’t mean physically. But if they had their way, he’d never leave this canyon alive. And he wouldn’t run. Not that he could anyway.

  “Lo, I am with you always.”

  The words came from some place inside him. He didn’t know from where. He’d never been a Bible reader before now. Maybe something Caroline had said? Or maybe—and a tremor ran through him—maybe they came from the Source.

  “Gentlemen, it’s sorry I am that you came so far for so little. But the true story is that I did not kill the young master. My sister Oona smashed his head with the whetstone. She did it to keep young Hawthorne from killing me. You’ve been after the wrong man all these years. Fact is, ‘twasn’t even a man.”

  33

  Caroline rubbed her bound hands against the jagged spit of rock. The rope chafed against her wrists, but she barely noticed as she looked up at the grim trio. Who was Oona? Who was Hawthorne? What had Michael done or not done? And why was he smiling?

  “You’re never about telling the truth,” the man called Kelly was saying.

  “I am now.” Michael stood with his legs slightly apart, his arms crossed over his chest, and his voice was almost singsong in quality. Always the storyteller.

  The thought made her smile in spite of the danger they were in.

  He had the stage and he loved it. Always Michael. “Oona killed the young master,” he was explaining. “But I took my sister’s place. I took the blame. I had a better chance of getting out of Ireland than a young girl alone, and she had a better chance of hiding right under their noses. ‘Twas better for all.” His gaze flicked to Caroline for just a second, a telling second, before he resumed. But now the storyteller was gone. “I took her place, her guilt, just as the Lord Jesus Christ took on ours. But I didn’t take her punishment. I ran instead, and I’ve been running ever since. The running was my sin.”

  “Where is your sister?” Kelly ground out.

  Michael shrugged. “Somewhere in Ireland.” He grinned broadly. “If you want to pillage every convent in the Emerald Isle, I’ll not stop you. But I think even Hawthorne would draw the line at that.”

  “Michael.”

  “Yes, acushla. I left Ohio so I could keep you out of this. And I’ve regretted every minute without you.”

  Kennedy pushed past his companion. “Sure and we’ll take you anyway,” he said. “You’ve led us a merry chase, Michael Moriarty, and Hawthorne owes us money for it. We’ll bring your scalp back to him. How’s that? He never needs to know it was your sister done it.”

  Caroline drew a breath, so sharp that she was sure everyone could hear.

  But all eyes were on Michael, in the center of the enclosure.

  He looked at her once, for a split second. His eyes were filled with peace, and no fear, in that glance. “If that’s the way it has to be.”

  Pace had been quiet long enough. “It ain’t,” he muttered, and dove for Kennedy’s knees. The impact sent the Irishman sprawling, and Pace landed on top of him, pounding his head against the packed dirt. The rifle slid from Kennedy’s grasp and skittered across the clearing.

  Michael lunged for the rifle. But Kelly was quicker, landing a punch in Michael’s stomach. Michael responded with a right to Kelly’s jaw, and the two men grappled in an embrace, like two terrible lovers in reverse.

  Jones, or Nelson, bent down and reached for Jenny. She twisted away, her hat askew, her beautiful face streaked with dirt. “I ain’t goin’,” she gasped as he twisted her arm.

  “Yes, you are. I didn’t come all this way and endure this company for nothing.” He bound her wrists, with a few swift movements. “You’re mine or you will be.”

  As Jenny struggled in his grasp, Nelson tossed her over the side of his gelding. When he was about to mount, Zach Thatcher grabbed him by the shoulders.

  “She don’t want to go, and she ain’t,” Jenny’s brother said.

  Nelson laughed, a jagged sound. “What do you care, boy? You got the horse.”

  Zach wrenched Nelson away from his mount. “I said no,” he ground out. They struggled briefly. When Zach’s knee connected with Nelson’s groin, the older man doubled over, cursing. A blade flashed in the sunlight, and Zach plunged it into Nelson’s chest.

  Jenny, her wrists still bound, twisted and slipped to the ground. She started forward, her face contorted in fury, but stopped as a shot rang out.

  “Zach,” she screamed as Nelson’s gun clattered to the ground and Nelson drew his final breath.

  Caroline scraped her roped wrists against the tiny jut of stone.

  Jenny dove for Nelson’s pistol. Still with her wrists bound, she trained it on Kelly, who was straddling Michael in the dirt. “Leave him be,” she said, in a voice as cold as these mountains. “Or I’ll shoot. You thugs aren’t worth dirt to me.”

  Kelly rose slowly, giving Michael a final kick before he stood to face Jenny. But before she could move, he fired his rifle. A bright red stain blossomed on her shirt, just below her rib cage. She crumpled to the earth, but not before firing back. She was a better shot than Kelly and her bullet hit home. Kelly made a guttural sound and fell into the dirt. He muttered something before his eyes rolled back in his head and he grew still, his face settling into a mask.

  Michael fell on Kennedy, wrenching the man away from Pace. He straddled Kennedy, holding him down with his knees while he reached for Kennedy’s rifle.

  Pace stumbled to Jenny, on his knees, and pulled up the bottom of her shirt. With his bare hands he dug out the bullet, then used his own shirt to stanch the bleeding.

  When Michael’s hands closed on the rifle, Kennedy heaved himself up, with a grunt, and sent Michael sprawling in the dirt. They grappled for the gun. But Michael’s hands closed on the trigger. He fired, and Kennedy tumbled backward.

  Michael stood up, dusted his hands, and looked down at the bodies of his ancient enemies. Emotions flitted across his face.

  Caroline couldn’t tell if they were relief or regret.

  He sighed. “I’m thinkin’ we have some burying to do.”

  “Wouldn’t bother.” Pace, shirtless, his face streaked with dirt, stood with a limp Jenny in his arms.

  Michael stroked his stubbled chin. “They were all God’s creatures, Pace. They started out like you and me. How is Jenny?”

  “She’ll make it. The Irishman wasn’t that good a shot. Missed her heart, and it didn’t go deep. But she needs more care than I can give her. Best we get moving.”

  “Whitman was a doctor before he took to preachin’,” Michael said. “He’ll fix her up.”

  “Ain’t likely she’ll get that far,” a raspy voice said.

  They turned, almost as one, and looked at the newcomer.

  He wore the buckskins of a plains tribe. But he was no Indian. His hair, darkened from lack of washing, might have once been straw-colored, and hung in two limp braids. The stubby beard was yellow too, and the face under the layer of trail dirt was white.

  Gravel skittered under his feet as he came down the slight slope to the box canyon. He carried a longbow, trained on Pace a
nd Jenny, and his grin, exposing a mouth of yellowed stumps, showed that he knew how to use it.

  Michael sighed again. “What do you want?”

  “Her.” The vagrant jerked his head toward Jenny. “I been followin’ that witch since Kansas. Aim to settle things, once for all.”

  “Who is he, Jenny? Easy, now,” Pace murmured, cradling his scout.

  Jenny was white from loss of blood, and her words came slowly. “He’s a thievin’ varmint…plugged him in Kansas…do it again if I wasn’t plugged myself.”

  Caroline wanted to applaud. Even now, Jenny had grit.

  The man laughed, a sound as cold and sharp as these mountains. “Time I’m done with you, you’ll wish that was all I done.” He nodded toward Michael and Caroline. “You two can go. I got no quarrel with you.”

  Michael looked at him in disbelief. “Do you think we’d leave her to you?”

  The creature spat, unconcerned, into the dirt. “If you want to live. I been trailing that little tramp since she shot me. I aim to finish the job.” He laughed again, short and sharp. “Jones thought I was gonna help round her up for him. I’d of killed them both first.”

  Not a lot of honor among these thieves.

  Under cover of her skirt, she had continued to work at cutting her bonds, against that tiny jagged edge of rock. The edge her God had provided her, of all the rocks in these mountains. She caught her breath as the frayed rope finally gave way. Swiftly, she folded her hands in her lap as though nothing had happened.

  Michael knew something was different. How attuned they were, even now. He met her glance and gave the tiniest of nods.

  The vagrant was taunting Jenny, moving closer, his arrow trained on her and Pace. “Soon’s that big galoot drops you, you an’ me are gonna have a little fun. He can’t hold out all day. You’re gonna die slow, lady.”

  As she listened to the monster’s detailed plans for Jenny, Caroline shuddered. And she heard Pace’s calm response. “If you lay a finger on her, I’m doin’ most of that to you.”

  With her skirt as a shield, she untied the rope binding her feet. No one was looking at her. As the drifter moved closer to Jenny, Pace kicked out at him. The drifter swore, and his bow clattered to the earth. He reached for Pace’s throat.