Early Dawn

by Catherine Anderson

  The thugs had been armed. They had demanded valuables, and neither Matthew nor Olivia had had anything to offer them. Matthew’s gold pocket watch had been at the jeweler’s for repairs, and Livvy’s wedding band hadn’t been worth much. Those bastards had retaliated by dragging Olivia from the wagon. When Matthew jumped in to defend her, two of the no-account polecats had held his arms while a third man beat him senseless with the butt of his revolver.

  Afterward Matthew had lain by the wagon with his face in the dirt while they kicked his torso, burying the toes of their boots as deeply as they could into his flesh to do as much damage as possible. When they’d grown weary of that sport and turned their vile intentions on Olivia, Matthew had tried desperately to move, but his body refused to cooperate. He hadn’t been able to lift his head. As if from a great distance, he’d heard Livvy screaming his name, over and over, until finally there was an awful silence. Seconds later, one of the ruffians had returned to Matthew, rolled him over onto his back with the toe of one boot, and shot him in the chest.

  It was all Matthew could remember. After that was only blackness.

  Matthew stared through a blur of tears at the ceiling rafters, wishing with every fiber of his being that he had died, too. He’d lain there in the dirt while his wife was raped and murdered. What kind of man was he?

  No kind of man, he decided. No kind of man at all.

  It took Matthew three more weeks to recover enough to get out of bed, and even then, he wasn’t anywhere close to being healed. His broken ribs hadn’t mended quite right, so it still hurt to breathe deeply. The bullet wound, which had done more damage to his shoulder than his chest, had left him barely able to use his left arm. He also had a hitch in his gait caused by an injury to his right hip.

  When Matthew first gained his feet, he staggered around like a drunk, his head spinning, his stomach lurching with nausea. At the mirror by the wardrobe, he saw why. The gash at his temple had been deep and nearly six inches long. Though his hair was growing back to cover the scar, it was still a vivid red and visible through the half-inch stubble. Yet another scar slashed from above his left eyebrow to the upper part of his eyelid, the line puckered from Doc’s lack of finesse with a needle and thread. Another jagged, crimson line angled along his cheekbone.

  With trembling fingers, Matthew traced the marks. His ma had shaved him yesterday, but she may as well not have bothered. His face had never been pretty-boy perfect, and now it bordered on the grotesque. The man who’d worked him over with the pistol butt must have been right-handed, Matthew decided, a fact that he filed away for later. Little wonder he felt dizzy on his feet. Head injuries like these could have killed him. The temple wound had been severe enough to affect some of his gray matter. It might take a while for his brain to right itself completely, and until then, he would probably feel dizzy and sick to his stomach more times than not.

  Even so, Matthew was determined to be up and about. While lying helpless in bed, he’d had a lot of time to think, and he’d kept coming full circle to the undeniable fact that no man worth his salt allowed a bunch of low-life bastards to cruelly rape and murder his wife. It was too late now for Matthew to undo the events of that terrible afternoon, but as God was his witness, it wasn’t too late to avenge Livvy’s death.

  Matthew managed to saddle his horse, Smoky, that first day and ride into Crystal Falls to stock up on ammunition for his .44-caliber Winchester rifle and his Colt revolvers. Before heading back home, he stopped at the jeweler’s, where he’d left his gold pocket watch for repairs a couple of weeks before the attack.

  The proprietor, a balding, middle-aged man of considerable girth who wore a black bib apron over a white shirt, the bosom and collar of which were polished to a high sheen, looked startled when he first saw the marks on Matthew’s face. Then he nodded solemnly and placed his plump hands palms down on the wooden counter.

  “Matthew,” he said by way of greeting. “Glad to see you on your feet. You look like you tangled with a grizzly bear and lost the battle.”

  “Wasn’t a grizzly, and there wasn’t a battle. I wish to hell there had been.”

  The jeweler nodded again. “The wife and I attended the services. I can’t begin to tell you how sorry we are about Livvy. Known her since she was no bigger than a grasshopper. Such a pretty little thing, always ready with a smile to cheer people up. She’ll be sorely missed.”

  Matthew touched the brim of his Stetson, his only response. He couldn’t speak of Olivia without his voice shaking.

  “I reckon you’re here for your watch.” The jeweler opened a small wooden drawer behind him and plucked out a manila packet. “Just needed a good cleaning. There’ll be no charge.”

  Matthew met the older man’s gaze. “Us Coulters don’t take charity, Paulson. Your time’s worth something.”

  “A dime will do it, then.”

  Matthew fished in his left hip pocket, wincing at the pain in his shoulder. He handed over the dime and grabbed the packet with his right hand. “Thanks for not sellin’ my watch. Took me a spell to come back for it, and I know your policy is to keep things for only thirty days.”

  “No worries. I inscribed that watch for Livvy right before your wedding. I know how precious it must be to you.”

  Matthew’s throat went tight. He touched the brim of his hat again and exited the shop. Once on the boardwalk, he opened the envelope and tipped the watch out onto his palm. The gold gleamed in the late-summer sunlight like a puddle of freshly churned butter. His heart hurt as he flipped the watch over to read the inscription on the back. Love Always, Matthew. Forever Yours, Livvy, 1882. Tears blurred his vision as he slipped the timepiece into his watch pocket. Forever, he realized now, was a very long time, and he had to face it without her.

  With difficulty, he remounted the horse and rode slowly home, trying not to jostle his shoulder or ribs. Hoyt, two years his junior, met him at the ranch gate. The younger man’s sun-browned face bore the Coulter stamp, a bladelike nose, Irish blue eyes, a strong jaw, and a squared, stubborn chin. In a rugged, lean way, Hoyt was a handsome man, but like Matthew, he could never lay claim to having fine features.

  “You’re goin’ after ’em, aren’t you?” Hoyt asked.

  Matthew nodded. “Have to. What they did can’t go unpunished.”

  “I’m goin’ with you, then.” Hoyt jerked off his battered hat and raked thick fingers through his dark brown hair. “Us Coulters stick together. It’s how Pa raised us. I can’t let you do this alone.”

  Matthew sighed and rested his crossed wrists over the saddle horn. “Pa needs you and the other boys here, Hoyt. I appreciate the offer, but I can’t accept.”

  “You can’t take on six outlaws by yourself!”

  “I’ll brush up on my shooting before I light out, and every day after. By the time I catch up with them, I’ll be as good with a gun as they are. I’ll be fine.” In truth, Matthew didn’t care if the bastards killed him. Without Livvy, he had nothing left to live for. “You’ve got to stay here, where you’re most needed.”

  “Pa can do without me for a few weeks. Zed and Gareth can do my share of the work for a spell.”

  “The Sebastians have stayed one step ahead of the law for good long while, Hoyt. What makes you think I can catch up with them in only a few weeks? It may take a lot longer than that. I’m hoping not, but there you have it.”

  “You shouldn’t go after ’em without somebody to watch your back, big brother.”

  The way Matthew saw it, their mother already stood to lose one son. There was no point in doubling her grief by putting Hoyt’s life at risk.

  “Should or shouldn’t aside, I’m not taking you with me.” Matthew reined his horse to go around his sibling. “The family needs you here.”

  As Matthew rode toward the log stable, he trailed his gaze over the ranch, which had been dubbed the Lazy J. The name had never made a lick of sense to Matthew. There was nothing lazy about raising beeves and horses. His pa had sweat blood to cl
ear enough land to support his growing herd of cattle, and that wasn’t to mention all the hours of labor it had taken to build the roomy log home, the outbuildings, and all the fences. Even now, at almost sixty, Matthew Coulter Senior worked from the first crack of dawn until well after dark, and all four of his sons did as well.

  At the door of the stable, Matthew swung from the saddle, supporting the bulk of his weight with his right arm until his feet settled on solid ground. A mere stone’s throw away sat the little log house that he had built for Livvy. He didn’t allow his gaze to wander in that direction. He hadn’t walked over there yet, because he dreaded going through the empty rooms. They would be just as he and his wife had left them on that fateful afternoon, her Bible resting on the nightstand, her Sunday shoes tucked toe first under the bed, her church dress draped over the back of the rocker. He didn’t know if he could handle that.

  He would have to soon, though. A man couldn’t hit the trail without a few changes of clothes. He’d give himself a couple more weeks to heal, target-practicing the entire while, and then it would be time to head out. His wife had endured a terrible and painful attack, and he had a score to settle with the Sebastian boys.

  Matthew wouldn’t rest until either he was six feet under or every last member of that gang was dead.

  Chapter One

  Three years later

  May 1890

  Weak, rain-drenched sunlight filtered through the lace curtains at the window of the Pacific Express passenger train, casting a dappled pattern on the white sheet of stationery that Eden Paxton clutched in her hand. As the luxury car chugged along the track to crest yet another steep grade on its way to Denver, she reread the words written on the paper for at least the tenth time in a week. Assimilating their meaning gave her the same sense of vertigo she often experienced when she looked down from high places. In short, her whole world had been tipped off its axis, all her hopes, dreams, and plans drifting away from her like pollen in a high wind.

  Her fiancé, John Parrish, had ended their engagement, not because he no longer loved her but because his highfalutin parents, San Franciscans of considerable social prominence, disapproved of Eden’s lineage. According to them, she lacked a “purebred” pedigree and therefore was unsuitable to be John’s wife or the mother of his children. John hadn’t even had the courage to tell Eden in person but instead had sent her this dreadful letter.

  Five years of my life, she thought bitterly, wasted on a pampered milksop who lacks the backbone to defy his father and mother. Even more telling to Eden, John had failed to stop his parents from vilifying her reputation in order to gain public support for him. It was unseemly for a man to end his engagement to a respectable young lady without just cause, so the Parrish family had whispered the ugly truth about Eden’s illegitimate birth to anyone who would listen, not caring a whit about the embarrassment they might cause Eden or her mother, Dory. Every time Eden thought about it, she burned with anger. Yesterday morning she and her mother had left the city in disgrace, scorned by lifelong friends, snubbed in places of business, and turned away from houses they’d visited for years. They were now pariahs in San Francisco, a place they had both considered home. The humiliation had been complete and as sharp as a stiletto.

  How could John have allowed his parents to behave so shabbily? Eden didn’t care so much about the consequences for herself. All the fussiness of city life had set her teeth on edge at times, and she’d grown impatient more than once with her flibbertigibbet friends who cared more about their appearance than anything else. But it had broken Eden’s heart to see her mother mistreated. A stiff-necked butler at the home of one prominent family had glared down his nose at Dory Paxton as if she were a cockroach and ordered her off his employer’s porch. Dory had handled this dismissal like a grand lady, holding her head high as she quit the property, but Eden would never forget the pain she’d glimpsed in her mother’s eyes.

  As if guessing her daughter’s thoughts, Dory curled slender fingers over Eden’s wrist, forcing her hand and the letter to her lap. “Please, darling, no more fretting on my account.” A delicate blonde with gentle blue eyes, Dory flashed an overbright smile. “I’ve wanted to live closer to your brothers for years. Truly I have. Every time we’ve visited them at one of their ranches, my heart has broken a little when it came time to leave. I thought about relocating. The only reason I never acted on it was because I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving you behind. You were so in love with John. Your future seemed to be all mapped out. I couldn’t be in two places at once, so I decided to stay put.”

  Eden no longer felt certain that she had ever truly loved John. She’d shed a few tears after receiving his letter, but then anger had taken over. Where was the heartbreak that she should be feeling? Why wasn’t she devastated and filled with despair? When a woman truly loved a man, she surely felt something besides outrage and secret relief when he walked away.

  The thought troubled Eden. How could she have misread her own feelings so completely? Even more worrisome, why had she never seen how weak and spineless John was when it came to displeasing his parents? She considered herself to be a fair judge of character. With four older brothers to educate her, she’d learned at an early age that not all men could be trusted. And yet she’d trusted John, accepting all his flimsy excuses for postponing their nuptials, never once suspecting that he no longer wanted to marry her. Perhaps that was why she felt only anger—because he’d made a complete fool of her. If Eden possessed one trait in goodly measure, it was pride. Being made to look ridiculous didn’t sit well with her.

  “Everything will work out fine,” Dory went on. “You’ll see. Remember how wonderful it was when we lived on the ranch in California before Ace started winning big at cards? Despite the struggles, we pulled together after Joseph Senior died, and we all became so close—a real family.”

  Privately, Eden couldn’t help but think the term ranch was a little too grandiose for the scraggly patch of land and three-room shack that they’d been forced to call home when they finally reached California. But her mother was right otherwise. As a family, they had made many wonderful memories during those lean, trying years—target-practicing, going on hunting trips for meat, playing games in the yard after the day’s work was completed, and then gathering for evening meals, grateful to have food, no matter how simple the fare. Later, when Ace began winning at cards, their circumstances had drastically improved, a rags-to-riches story, but when Eden revisited some of her fondest childhood memories, she often recalled the shack and the wondrous love that had warmed every drafty room.

  Sticking to her subject, Dory chattered away. “Ace has made some very sound investments on my behalf over the years, you know. Soon I’ll have the proceeds from the sale of the house in San Francisco. There will be plenty of capital to start over fresh. No Name is such a friendly little town. I’m sure we’re both going to love it there.”

  Eden hoped that would be the case, but deep down, she doubted it. For one, her mother was accustomed and well suited to living in a city where she could enjoy art museums, a well-stocked public library, shopping opportunities galore, and a variety of social activities. No Name, Colorado, offered few of those amenities. There was also the fear that Eden’s remarkable resemblance to her sister-in-law, Caitlin, would raise suspicion. People in No Name might snub Dory once they realized the truth about her past—that their town drunk, Connor O’Shannessy, Caitlin’s father and now deceased, had taken wrongful advantage of Dory twenty-four years ago and left her pregnant with Eden, his bastard daughter. The fine citizens of No Name might not dress as richly as Dory’s faithless friends in San Francisco, but under the homespun, they could be just as self-righteous and narrow-minded. None of them would want to associate with Eden or with the woman who had given birth to her.

  Keeping her thoughts about that to herself, Eden stuffed John’s letter back into her beaded reticule and snapped the bag closed. Over the last week, Dory had endured insult after insult,
and Eden didn’t have the heart to deal her yet another blow by playing devil’s advocate. Besides, maybe Eden was wrong, and the good people of No Name would welcome them into their midst with open arms. If not, Eden would deal with the problem when it arose. For now, it felt good to see her mother smiling again.

  “I’ll love being able to see my brothers on a daily basis,” Eden said with forced cheerfulness. “Little Ace is over two years old now! Can you believe it? I’ll bet he’s absolutely darling.”

  “About the age of our little towheaded traveling companion,” Dory replied.

  At mention of the child seated behind them, Eden glanced over her shoulder to smile at his mother. The slender brunette had done a remarkable job of keeping the toddler entertained during the journey from San Francisco, reading him stories, playing games with him, and helping him to draw pictures. Occasionally, though, the little fellow escaped into the aisle and raced madly back and forth to burn off excess energy. Whenever he stopped near Dory’s seat, the older woman plucked interesting objects from her reticule and allowed him to handle them. He was particularly fond of her little mirror and heavily laden ring of house keys.

  Returning her attention to her mother, Eden said, “As much as I’ve missed my brothers, I’m excited about seeing the little ones. I have a niece I’ve never clapped eyes on! In Ace’s last letter, he said she’s already smiling and trying to make sounds. It’ll be so much fun to play with her.” Born in December, Dory Sue Keegan was the newest addition to Ace’s growing family. Eden didn’t approve of parents naming children after living family members. To her way of thinking, the practice created unnecessary confusion for the children. But she was pleased that it made her mother happy to have the baby named after her. “If she’s as beautiful as Ace claims, she’ll be a delight to behold. Do you suppose her eyes may change from blue to brown when she gets older?”