The Raging Hearts: The Coltrane Saga, Book 2

by Patricia Hagan

  Up and down the hall she ran, from room to room. Where was everyone? Where in God’s name was her son?

  The gunfire was getting closer. Hysteria bubbling in her throat, she covered her hands with her ears and stood in the middle of the wide hallway, rocking to and fro, trying to think. Where could Corey have sent the baby? Where would he be? She did not know what was going on outside, but with so many guns firing, she had to make sure John was safe.

  A window shattered. Then another. Men were shouting. Hoofbeats thundered by. Someone screamed in agony. Another window shattering, this time in the nursery! Dear God, she had to find John!

  She made her way to the first floor where she ran into the parlor to find the brocade sofa in flames. A lantern had been hit by gunfire, spilling onto the fabric. Grabbing a small rug, she began to beat at the hungry fire hysterically. Let the house burn later. Later, she would thrill to see it in rubble and ashes, but not now, not when she could not find her baby. He was here somewhere, he had to be. If Corey had taken him away to Raleigh again, he would have told her.

  The front door crashed open, and she whirled toward the entrance foyer to see Jerome Danton towering there, face flushed with anger and eyes gleaming murderously. He was pointing a gun at her, but she did not tremble.

  “Where is he?” Jerome snarled. “Where’s McRae?”

  Several more of his men ran in behind him and were told to search the house.

  “Please, don’t harm my baby,” Kitty cried. “I had nothing to do with any of Corey’s plans. You must believe me. But he’s hidden my baby. That’s all I care about. I promise you, Jerome, I don’t know where Corey went. He and Hugo ran out awhile ago, with guns. Just don’t harm my son, please.”

  “Beating up on kids is Corey’s way, Kitty, not mine. I believe you. And if my men find your baby, I promise you he won’t be harmed. But do you know what your husband did tonight? Do you know?” His voice rose to a scream.

  “Yes, I know!” she screamed back at him, suddenly coming out of her stupor to be angry. Gone was the fear, and in its place, the fighting spirit that always shone through any crisis. “I know, because I overheard him talking to Rance Kincaid about the murder of your man Dawson, the plot to attack Mattie Glass and beat up her sons—all of it. But I could do nothing! Do you understand me? I was shackled! And now God only knows where my baby is.”

  She fought the impulse to cry, to sink beneath that giant invisible web that would smother her like some enormous spider’s nest. No, this was not the time to wilt. This was the time to fight back.

  They stood facing each other, eyes locked in a gaze that questioned whether the other could be trusted. Finally Jerome spoke. “All right, Kitty, I believe you. I think I’ve believed you all along. I’ll try to help you find your baby, but I warn you, I came here to end this feud. Those idiot gunmen of his didn’t capture Frank’s horse. He came back to his corral, and there was blood on the saddle. We rode back the way we figure he’d come, and we found more blood. It didn’t take much more figuring to know Corey was behind it all. Now I know why. He wanted to get Mattie Glass so scared she’d sell him her damned land, and this time he’d make me and the boys look responsible for sure, by leaving Frank behind dead.”

  “Exactly! Now, are we going to stand here talking about it, or are you going to find my baby?”

  “Kitty, I have no idea where your baby is. The thing I need to do right now is find Corey. You stay here. Take cover, because there’s going to be more shooting. When it’s over, I’ll help you. I promise. Now do as I say.”

  “You expect me to just sit here and wait?”

  Just then another window exploded, and they both fell to the floor.

  “Yes, I do,” he said with strange calmness. “Unless you want your head blown off. Now there’s a lot of places out there where Corey and his men can be holed up. Anything can happen. So you just creep around and put out all the lanterns so there won’t be more danger of fires.” He looked at the scorched sofa, then crawled on his hands and knees to put out the last remaining lantern in the room. Except for the softly glowing chandelier in the entrance foyer, they were in darkness.

  “Jerome?” a voice Kitty did not recognize called out from the hallway. “We’ve looked all through this house and we ain’t found nothing. Let’s go.”

  “Put out those lights in the hall,” Jerome snapped. “I don’t want to be a perfect target for those bastards. No telling where they are.”

  He moved his feet, stealthily as a stalking cat. His man did as he was told, and they were surrounded by the dark. Kitty could barely hear their feet moving across the polished mahogany floors. Then she was alone.

  For long moments, she crouched in the darkness. Where was John? In one of the old slave cabins out back? Had Corey had him taken there so she would not hear him crying for her?

  Each time gunfire split the air, she covered her ears and gritted her teeth to keep from screaming. It was like the war all over again. The cries, the thuds of falling bodies, the smell of sulphur. There, staring into the void about her, she could see the battlefields again. The nightmare was returning.

  Dear God, in all of this, where was her baby?

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Travis sat in his room alone. By the light whispering through the open window he could see the bottle in his hand. Lifting it slowly to his lips, he took a long swallow. Damn the burning. The warmth was what counted—that sweet, sedating heat that spread through his body. It took away his pain.

  To think that Kitty Wright could love him was ridiculous. She had used him. But in the back of his mind was the nagging question that even the burning whiskey could not dull. Why was she trying to pass her son off as his? Corey was rich and powerful. What did Kitty think she could gain?

  Damn it, he would never get over her. Never. And if he didn’t need those last few drinks left in the bottle, he would send it crashing against the wall. He’d done that a lot lately. Made a lot of messes and wasted plenty of good booze, too. No, this time he would finish the whiskey. Then he could send it smashing against the wall.

  Sam Bucher did not bother to knock. He opened the door so swiftly that it banged back against the wall, and he found himself looking down the barrel of the gun Travis was pointing at him.

  “You’re damn lucky there’s a lantern in that hall, or you’d be dead by now,” Travis said in a slurred voice, the hammer clicking back in place as he shoved the weapon down into his holster.

  “And you’re damn lucky you’re still sober enough to pull that thing out so quick.” Sam kicked the door shut and walked over to light the lantern beside the bed.

  “Where the hell have you been all day?” Travis lifted the bottle to his lips, then cried out in angry protest as Sam knocked it from his hand.

  “You’ve had enough. Now you sober up and listen.” His face was red, his eyes glowing. “I’ll tell you where I’ve been—out doing the checking I said I was going to do. You know who brought Kitty into town last night?”

  “I don’t care.”

  “You will care. About a whole hell of a lot of things when I tell you what I found out. It was that nigra Luther.”

  Travis showed signs of interest. “The outlaw we’ve been looking for?”

  “Right. I got hold of a nigra that hangs around the saloon downstairs and put the fear of God in him. I’ve had him pegged all along, figuring he kept Luther and his gang informed as to what goes on around town. I was right, and he broke down and told me it was Luther and his boys who helped Kitty escape by slipping onto the McRae place and taking care of all the guards. Then Luther brought Kitty to town.”

  Sam wiped perspiration from his brow. It had been a busy day, and he’d been up since way before dawn, determined to get to the bottom of things. “The Negroes were the only friends Kitty had after she got kicked out of the hospital, Travis. She stayed with them awhile, then moved back to a shack on her daddy’s land. Danton and his gang burned her out. They left Kitty in labor, and M
cRae took her in.”

  “Why shouldn’t he?” Travis snapped. “She was having his baby.”

  Sam threw his hat down on the floor and stomped on it. “Goddammit, man, why do you have to be so blamed stubborn? I’m trying to tell you. That’s not Corey McRae’s baby. Kitty is telling the truth! I’ve asked enough questions that there’s no doubt in my mind. That’s why they kicked her out of the hospital, because the pious, hypocritical women around here wouldn’t stand for her working there in the family way. That black boy told me a hell of a lot, how he saw her almost attacked the night she left the hospital because she was wandering around with no place to go. McRae came to her rescue. She’d never met him before that night. I even know the date the baby was born. The kid is yours.”

  Travis sucked in his breath, a cold chill moving up and down his spine. His son. No, it couldn’t be. Yet Sam had obviously done a lot of checking and believed everything he had learned. Sam was not easily fooled.

  “Well, aren’t you going to say anything?” Sam was fuming. “The girl had your baby. You went off and left her. She had no place to go, and McRae took advantage of her. And there’s more. I found out Jacob was shipped off with his two grandsons to some farm down in South Carolina, right after me and you hit town. It’s like McRae wanted to make real sure we couldn’t talk to him. You understand? Kitty is telling the truth, and there’s no telling what kind of nightmare you’ve sent her and your son back to live in.”

  He sat down on the side of the bed, eyes searching Travis’s face. “There’s still more. I rode out to that Glass woman’s cabin today and talked to her. She’s about the only woman in town that didn’t snub Kitty, and she says that girl worked day and night at the hospital and never left, not till she was thrown out. She says everybody in town was condemning her for carrying a Yankee soldier’s baby in her belly. So how can you deny what’s so? Damn it, man, how can you deny your own son?”

  “All right.” Travis’s voice was quiet, ominous. “So the boy is mine. That still doesn’t change anything where Kitty is concerned. You and I both know how I begged her to go with us.”

  “Hell, I can see why she wanted to stay. She’d had enough of war, Coltrane. Hadn’t we all? She’d just lost her father, and this was her home.”

  “It doesn’t matter. There’s too much that points in the other direction. What about those hired guns that came after us? They almost got me, remember?” His eyes flashed with remembrance. “She’s got a damn good setup, Sam, married to a rich bastard like McRae. She’ll still have it good when the son of a bitch is behind bars.”

  Sam leaped to his feet and began pacing the drably furnished room, running nervous fingers through his graying hair. Finally he whirled around and spread his hands and cried, “Well, if you believe the boy is yours, what do you intend to do about it?”

  But before Travis could answer, there was a loud pounding on the door. Both men reached for their guns as Sam yelled for them to come in.

  The Negro Sam had questioned opened the door and stood there, twisting his old straw hat in gnarled hands. His eyes were bulging, and his lips were trembling. “I…I thoughts you lawmen would wants to know…they is big trouble out at the McRae place. Leastways, they’s gonna be soon’s Danton and his men get there.”

  Travis was already off the bed and pulling on his boots.

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Sam demanded.

  “I seen ’em ride out of town, that’s all.” He started backing toward the door.

  Sam reached out and clamped a burly hand on the Negro’s scrawny shoulder. “No, hell, that ain’t all. Just what do you know?”

  The black man cringed, looked from Sam’s glaring eyes to Travis’s, then said, “I gonna get killed if’n anybody hears me tellin’ this—”

  “You’re gonna get killed if you don’t start telling it,” Sam snarled. “Now hurry it up.”

  “One of Danton’s men, man named Dawson, got hisself killed tonight. Danton figured McRae had a hand in it, so he rounded up his men, and they done gone to settle things once and for all. I seen ’em riding out about five minutes ago, and I figured you’uns bein’ the law and all, you’d want to know.”

  “You were right.” Sam gave him a reassuring pat. “Now get the hell out of here and keep your mouth shut. Don’t repeat what you’ve told us to anybody else.”

  Travis was on his feet. “Let’s go.”

  Within minutes they were riding their horses out of town and toward the McRae plantation, pushing their mounts as fast as they would go. Neither man spoke.

  Travis was thinking about his son, rolling the words around in his mouth, his mind, his heart. My son! He actually had a son. Damn Kitty to hell for not waiting for him, he thought fiercely. But she no longer mattered. Let her have her wealth and her fine house and her daddy’s land. By God, he was going to have his son. He was going to take him and go back to Louisiana and the peace and quiet and beauty of the bayou. The war and its painful memories would fade away. He and his boy would find happiness.

  The horses’ thundering hoofbeats broke the night silence. Faster, Travis spurred his horse, and Sam saw and did likewise. Faster, damn it, faster.

  It seemed an eternity before they heard the sounds of gunfire and knew they were close. “You gonna just ride in there?” Sam yelled over the cannonade. “We’ll get our heads blowed off.”

  Travis did not answer. Only when they reached the gates to the plantation itself did he rein in his horse and stop. Dismounting, he said, “We go the rest of the way on foot. The shooting is coming in spurts now. I think the war is over. There’s just a few hanging on to keep it going.”

  They moved down the curving driveway. Sam stumbled over something and looked down to make out a body. A few feet farther on another man lay dying. He didn’t pause to give him aid because he knew he had to keep up with Travis.

  “All right, hold it!” Travis yelled, sighting Jerome Danton standing in the moonlight. Pointing his gun, he walked forward. “Make one move, Danton, and I’ll blow your guts open.”

  Jerome dropped his gun, raised his hands and limped forward. “Okay,” he said. “It’s all over. I got what I came after.”

  “Tell your men to throw down their guns,” Sam ordered. Jerome obeyed and, one by one, men began stepping from behind trees, shrubs, out of nowhere.

  “They killed one of my men. Frank Dawson,” Jerome said in a quiet, subdued voice “I came here to settle this fight once and for all, and I did. Most of McRae’s men are dead. We caught them by surprise.”

  “You’re all under arrest,” Travis said coldly. “Where is McRae?”

  “I want to tell you something, Marshal.” For the first time since he began talking, Danton displayed anger. “I found out from Kitty what McRae had planned. He killed Dawson to haul his body along to the widow Glass’s. He was going to work her over again, have her boys beaten so’s to scare her into wanting to sell her land and move to town where she’d be safe. He holds the tax lien on her property, but he didn’t want it said he kicked a poor widow woman off her land. He wanted to make things look nice. He was going to leave Dawson behind, to link him to me and my men so I’d get the blame.”

  “Where is he?” Travis repeated coldly. “And where is his wife and the boy?”

  “McRae’s around back. I shot him. If he ain’t dead, he soon will be. Nobody knows where the boy is. Kitty was hysterical when I talked to her. She can’t find the boy either.”

  Travis was already walking in the direction Danton was pointing. Sam watched him anxiously, wishing he could go along but knowing he had to stay behind to cover Danton and his men.

  Rounding the big mansion, Travis could make out the grim scene a little distance ahead. A Negro servant held a lantern over Corey McRae, and Kitty was kneeling beside him, sobbing. Very touching, Travis thought bitterly, and drew closer with stealth, hoping to overhear what was said.

  He did not arrive in time to hear Corey’s dying words. “In my own way, Kit
ty…” he whispered into her anxious face, “I did love you. I’ve left it all, everything I had…to you.”

  “Corey, please, just tell me what you did with my baby,” she pleaded, her hands clasped against her bosom as she knelt beside him. Even at his death she could feel only loathing, and even that was overpowered by the anguish of not knowing where little John had been taken. “Just tell me where my son is, Corey, please.”

  He gave one last guttural moan, and the blood that gurgled from his mouth was a thick, muddy red in the lantern’s yellow glow. He coughed and the blood gushed forth in one final spurt. Then his head slumped to the side, eyes pinpointed toward the stars.

  Travis got within earshot just as the servant said, “Miss Kitty, don’t you fret. That boy is down in one of the cabins. Mistah McRae had him taken there ’cause he got tired of hearing him cry. He’s just fine. You know Lottie? She lookin’ after him since Dulcie and Addie got sent away.”

  Kitty had not noticed Travis standing nearby. Breathing a sigh of relief, she murmured, “All right. Just so I know he’s safe. The shooting seems to be over now. Get a blanket from the house to cover Mr. McRae.”

  The servant slowly set the lantern down on the ground beside his mistress and the body of his master, but his eyes were watching the taut, grim lines on the face of the tall man standing nearby. A shimmer of light caught on his chest. A star. The man was the law. Everything would be all right now.

  The Negro scurried by Travis Coltrane to disappear into the darkness.

  Kitty tried to feel something as she looked down at Corey’s body. She did not want to hate, yet she could not deny the passion of pure loathing. He had tricked her, abused and tormented her. Yes, yes, she was glad he was dead. Even if Travis were lost to her forever, she had her son. She had her life again. No longer would she suffer from Corey McRae.