Fortunately, one of the Mexican women had the foresight to bring a rope. It was tied to Shamus’s chair and the woman and older boys took turns to pull, one pushing from behind.
A lesser man would’ve been dejected, wallowing in despair, but Shamus O’Brien was made of sterner stuff. He directed his little party of refugees south, like a rough-hewn Moses leading his people across the wilderness. He was confident that, somehow, somewhere, he’d meet up with his sons. He had to. All their lives depended on it.
But after an hour, as the darkness grew deeper, the raw wind stronger, and snow spun through the sighing night, Shamus saw the women around him falter. Their young ones cried from cold and hunger, and he realized that he was a burden. Moving his wheelchair across rough country was a backbreaking task.
He ordered a halt and had Lorena and another woman parcel out what little food they’d managed to bring with them. Gradually the children quieted down, huddling with their mothers in a circle around Shamus’s chair.
“If my memory serves me right and I haven’t lost my sense of direction, White Bluffs should be a mile to our west,” he told Lorena. “There’s an old ruined pueblo there where we can shelter for the night.”
“Anything to get out of this wind,” the girl said, holding her suckling son to her breast. Her face brightened. “Maybe Samuel is there.”
“Maybe.” But Shamus held out little hope. The country was wide and rugged and his sons could be anywhere. “Will the people make it?”
“Yes,” Lorena said. “They’re tough.”
“I’m a burden, I know that,” Shamus said. “You’ll lead them, to the bluffs, Lorena, and leave me here.”
The woman smiled. “And let you freeze to death? That’s not going to happen, Colonel.”
“I could order you to leave me here.”
“You could, but I’m not one of your cowboys, so your orders carry no weight with me. You’ll go. We all go. You’re the glue that holds us together.”
“Lorena, without me you might have a chance.”
“Shamus, I don’t want to hear any more of this. You’re going with us, even if I have to push you myself.”
“You remind me of my wife,” Shamus said, smiling. “She was a strong-willed woman like you.”
“She would have to have been, wouldn’t she? Married to a stubborn husband like you and four equally hardheaded sons.”
Lorena removed her son’s mouth from her breast with a soft little pop! “It’s time to move on, Colonel.” She shivered. “I think the snow’s falling heavier.”
When Shamus O’Brien was close enough to make out the flat-topped bulk of White Bluffs through the snowfall, he swung north, toward what he hoped was the location of the pueblo.
His memory hadn’t failed him. Only two ruined adobes remained of what had been a fair-sized settlement two hundred years before, but they represented shelter from the cold and wind and offered the possibility of a fire.
The women and children wasted no time crowding into the adobes. To their joy there was enough ancient, dry wood scattered around for a couple fires.
There was no coffee, but Lorena melted a tin cup of snow over a fire and brought the hot water to Shamus, who was on guard at the door of the larger building. “Drink this, Colonel. It will warm you.”
“Is there some for the others?”
“Yes.” She smiled. “We have plenty of cups, but no coffee.”
Shamus drank the hot water gratefully, his eyes reaching out through darkness and snow. “I wonder where they are?”
He did not expect an answer, nor did Lorena give one.
Far off, a pack of wolves glided through the high timber like gray ghosts. Lorena shivered when she heard sudden howls that portended a chase and a violent death amid the wind-shadowed night.
Chapter Forty-four
Joel Whitney’s renegades struck at dawn.
Two vaqueros went down with the first volley. Luther Ironside, drinking coffee by the fire, fell after a bullet tore into his left thigh.
Jacob and Shawn had just saddled their horses when the first shots split the air and rattled through the surrounding juniper and piñon. They heard shooting in the direction of the camp, but ignored it, focusing on the oncoming attackers. The brothers, and four vaqueros with them, took the brunt of the attack, a dozen mounted bushwhackers coming at them in a headlong charge along a brush-covered creek bank.
Jacob drew, understanding it was a bedrock gunfight. There was no room or time for grandstand plays.
He slammed shots into the horsemen. Shawn and the vaqueros were firing, too. A sound of rolling, racketing thunder surrounded them. Men and horses went down, and a few of the renegades drew rein, stunned . . . appalled. In just a few seconds they’d lost half their number, bullets buzzing past and through them as though they’d kicked over a hornet’s nest.
Whitney had tried to save money by recruiting border trash, petty thieves, pimps, and goldbrick artists. Nothing in their experience had prepared them to fight against men like these. They were facing gunfighters, and now all bets were off.
The riders in front tried to turn their horses, and got tangled in those coming from behind them. More horses fell. Cursing men rolled away from them, trying to regain their feet.
Their Colts shot dry, Jacob and Shawn grabbed rifles from their saddle boots and the vaqueros followed suit. One of the attackers, with more sand than the others, freed himself from his fallen horse, then stood, a gun in each hand, shrieking war talk. Jacob shot him, saw the man stagger and shot him again. The renegade went down and stayed down.
Shawn and the vaqueros worked their Winchesters and pumped lead. It was enough. The surviving horsemen broke and ran, leaving eight of their number dead and dying on the ground.
Jacob turned his horse toward the campfire. Ironside sat, one leg drawn up, working his Colt well, scoring hits. Patrick and Samuel stood side by side and fired steadily. Five renegades were down, and another slumped in the saddle, coughing black blood over his chest.
Jacob killed a rider, and then winged a second. The vaqueros who’d been closest to the fire hammered shots into the raiders and dropped three of them.
As wise as outhouse rats, Whitney’s riffraff realized they were trying to buck a stacked deck. Several of them turned and set spurs to their horses. “And for all I know, they’re still runnin’ yet,” Ironside would say later.
To a man, every Dromore rider that morning was good with a gun, but Jacob and Shawn were first-rate—named men whom other belted men acknowledged were fast and deadly with any firearm.
Whitney’s rabble had made a terrible mistake, and one of them explained it in detail.
He was a lanky towhead, the big hands of a farm boy dangling out of the sleeves of a coat three sizes too small for him. He appeared out of the smoke haze and stepped toward the fire. The kid’s chest was ripped apart by bullets and his face was covered in blood. He was no longer alive, but didn’t yet know he was dead. And he wanted to say his piece.
He stopped when he was several feet from Jacob and the others. “He told us it would be easy, that you was just a bunch of rubes who’d die easy.”
“Whitney told you wrong, boy,” Samuel said.
“I’ve never seen the like of you and your’n afore,” the kid said, looking at Jacob. “You ain’t human, not hardly.”
“Best you lie down and die quiet, boy,” Samuel said. “Say a prayer, maybe.”
But Jacob looked at the bodies of the two dead vaqueros and Ironside grimacing in pain, and there was no give in him. He raised his rifle, shot the boy dead center, and watched him fall.
“Things are tough all over, son.”
“Looks like the bullet went right through your leg without hitting bone, Luther,” Samuel said.
“Well, that’s good news, ain’t it?” Ironside said, dry as a stick.
Samuel smiled, “We’re taking you back to Dromore right now and let Nellie work on you.”
“Spoil him, you me
an,” Jacob said.
“Shot-up leg or no, I can still outride and outwork you, boy,” Ironside said.
“Hell, Luther, you haven’t done a lick of work in years,” Jacob said.
“Yeah? Well, I’ve been resting,” Ironside said. “Kinda biding my time so I can out-cowboy mouthy young whippersnappers like you, Jacob.”
Jacob grinned. “Then let’s bind up that leg and get you on your horse, cowboy.”
Shawn sacrificed his spare shirt to make bandages for Luther’s thigh. The entry wound was bad, raw and inflamed, but the exiting .44 bullet had tumbled and torn away a chunk of flesh. The O’Brien brothers had seen Nellie work wonders on bullet wounds before, but they figured her work would be cut out for her this time.
Luther Ironside was not a complaining man, but he vented his lungs when he was helped into the saddle by a couple vaqueros and his wounded thigh slammed against the stock of his booted rifle. “Damn it, you boys are gonna kill me long before I ever get to see Nellie,” he yelled.
“Take it easy there.” Jacob grinned. “Mr. Ironside’s got a lot of ropin’ and brandin’ to do and he’ll need his leg.”
“Jacob,” Ironside said, scowling from the saddle, “I swear . . .” But he didn’t swear anything, because he couldn’t come up with the right cusswords at such short notice.
The two dead vaqueros were loaded onto their horses for return to Dromore, but Whitney’s dead men stayed where they lay. Coyotes and buzzards would scatter their bones, and in the fullness of time the bones would turn to dust. A great wind would blow the dust away, and it would fertilize the prairie grass. Such was nature’s way of ensuring that nothing was wasted.
Ironside had lost blood and wasn’t in shape to spend long hours in the saddle, riding into a north wind that drove stinging sheets of snow at him. Samuel decided to make camp that night in the shadow of Hurtado Mesa. They rode out the next morning an hour short of daylight, anxious to get Ironside into Nellie’s capable, gentle hands.
Chapter Forty-five
The big house looked the same, white and pillared against a backdrop of falling snow, as pretty as a Currier and Ives print. Smoke from the chimneys tied bows in the air and a winter wreath of holly hung on the red door.
But Jacob sensed something was wrong, and when Samuel looked at his brother’s stony face he felt a stirring of alarm. “What do you think, Jacob?”
“I don’t know,” Jacob said. “The house doesn’t look right, as though the windows are staring at me, warning me to stay away. Somehow, I sense Whitney’s hand in this.”
“Has he done something to the colonel?”
“Could be. But Dromore doesn’t seem like a house in mourning.” Jacob shook his head. “Hell, why stand here talking about it? Let’s find out.”
He kneed his horse forward. Patrick, Shawn, Samuel, and the ten vaqueros spread out on either side of him. Luther Ironside held back, holding the lead ropes of the dead vaqueros’ horses. Lightheaded and fevered as he was, if Jacob was right and something bad had happened at Dromore involving Joel Whitney, it could mean gun work, and he was in no shape for a fight.
As Jacob had said, the windows of Dromore had eyes, but they were human. Joel Whitney saw the riders emerge through the gusting afternoon snow and raised the alarm.
“Get rid of them, Clay,” he said to Stanley. “Warn them that they’re trespassing on my property.”
The Texan grinned. “The O’Briens will fight, boss.”
“Well, isn’t that what I’m paying you for, to fight back?”
“I just wanted to warn you that there will be dead men to bury come dark,” Stanley said.
Whitney shrugged. “That’s the cost of doing business.”
“Jacob is the fastest with the iron,” Stanley said. “I reckon if I gun him it’ll take the fight out of the others and they’ll quit.”
“Do what you have to do, Mr. Stanley,” Whitney said. “Just get rid of them.” He stared out the window. “They’re almost here. Get your men outside.”
If the O’Brien brothers had any doubts about Jacob’s fears, they vanished when they saw Whitney’s gunmen pile out the front door.
Samuel led his riders to within ten yards of the Texans and drew rein. “What are you men doing here?”
Stanley stepped forward. He wore a canvas coat but had it pulled back from the guns strapped to his chest. “This is private property and you men are trespassing,” he said, grinning.
“Where is the colonel?” Samuel said.
Stanley waved a hand. “Out there somewhere. He skedaddled after he signed over this ranch to Mr. Whitney.”
“Where are my wife and child?” Samuel said, alarm rising in his voice.
“They’re with your pappy, boy.” Stanley moved his eyes to Jacob. “Howdy, Jake. Can I get you a cup of coffee before you leave?”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Jacob said. “The colonel would never surrender this ranch to trash like Joel Whitney. Get that little rat out here.”
“Well, he did sign it away, and Mr. Whitney is not receiving visitors today. There’s the beginning and the end of it. Now, if you boys will be on your way, I want to get out of this cold.”
“We have a wounded man here,” Samuel said. “Where is Nellie?”
Stanley said, “She ain’t around anymore.”
“Is she with the colonel?” Samuel said.
“Nah, she’s out back waiting for the spring thaw.”
“Clay, what happened to Nellie?” Jacob slowly unbuttoned his mackinaw. His snow-flecked face was as still as a death mask.
“Well, your pa killed her, in a manner of speaking.” Stanley was smiling, a man hugely enjoying himself. “See, he refused to sign Mr. Whitney’s paper, so he told me to shoot the black gal, which I did.” He pointed his right forefinger at his temple. “Right there, Jacob.”
Confident of his lightning speed with a gun, the last thing Clay Stanley expected was for Jacob to draw.
Jacob’s Colt was up and firing before Stanley even cleared leather. Jacob fired two shots at a range of twenty-five feet and scored two hits. Both bullets crashed into the middle of Stanley’s chest, only an inch apart. The gunman staggered back, his eyes unbelieving. He tried to lift his Russians on target, but suddenly the big revolvers felt too heavy to lift. Clay Stanley dropped to his knees, his surprised eyes on Jacob. He died in that position . . . as guns roared his requiem.
But the firing didn’t come from the O’Briens and their vaqueros. They were momentarily as stunned motionless by the sudden violence of Jacob’s draw as Whitney’s Texans. Led by Shamus’s black butler, four of Dromore’s male servants rounded the corner of the house and cut loose with shotguns they’d retrieved from the colonel’s gun cabinet.
Three gunmen went down and a couple more were bloodied by scattering buckshot. The others reeled back from the unexpected onslaught. Backing into those behind them made a couple Texans step wide, their drawn guns coming up as they sought to bring them to bear. Jacob, thumbing fast shots off a rearing horse, dropped one man and the other decided he’d had enough. He threw his gun away, out of it.
The half dozen Texans who were still on their feet raised their hands. They were all named gunfighters, not one of them a coward, but mercenaries aren’t expected to fight to the death. They’d had their fill of Dromore and its fast-shooting riders.
Jacob O’Brien was in a killing rage, his face a twisted mask of hate and fury. He swung out of the saddle and ran for the door. Men shrank back from him as they would an out-of-control inferno.
He wanted to kill Joel Whitney—wanted to kill him real bad.
Jacob’s search of the house revealed that the bird had flown. Whitney had probably run for it when he saw Clay Stanley fall. When Jacob went outside, there were fresh horse tracks leading from the barn. He followed them until they swung north and headed into a stand of mixed juniper and wild oak.
It looked like Whitney was headed for Santa Fe where he could lose himself in the crowd, b
ut Jacob wasn’t about to give up. He was going to track him down.
A flash of red caught his eye at the bottom of the barn wall, between the stone foundation and the old zinc horse trough that had stood there since he was a boy. Jacob stepped to the wall and saw what he at first thought was a large rag doll half buried in snow. He kneeled, wedging himself into the tight space between the barn and the trough, and looked closer. It was Nellie’s body, wearing one of her red dresses that she loved so much.
Gently, Jacob brushed snow from the woman’s face. Her black eyes stared up at him, no longer flashing wit and intelligence, but as dull and flat as river pebbles.
Whitney had just tossed Nellie away, like a piece of worthless garbage.
It took time to ease the body out of that tight space, but Jacob didn’t hurry. He was determined to protect Nellie’s dignity, even in death.
Finally he was able to take the stiff little body in his arms. He carried her to the timber chapel the vaqueros had built for their families and laid her out in front of the altar. He stood there, his hat in his hands, and stared down at her, grieving, remembering his boyhood and the kind, loving woman who’d been a second mother to him.
Jacob stood there, in the snow-gloom of the chapel, until Patrick came and gently led him outside.
As they walked toward the house, Patrick handed Jacob a piece of paper. “I found this in the colonel’s study.” Jacob glanced at the contract that transferred ownership of Dromore, his father’s scrawled signature at the bottom. “Whitney skedaddled so fast, he didn’t have time to take this with him.” Jacob tore the paper into shreds and let them drop to the ground. “I’m going after him.”
Patrick nodded, but said nothing,
“Where are Whitney’s men?” Jacob asked.
“Samuel and the others have them corralled.”
“I’m going to kill them,” Jacob said, feeding fresh cartridges into his Colt. “I’m going to kill every damned one of those sons of bitches.”
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