by Kaki Warner
Despite the gray hair, the man wasn’t as old as Rafe had first thought—not much older than his own thirty-two. And probably ex-cavalry. In addition to the tight buff-colored trousers tucked in to knee-high, polished boots, and the small military-style case attached to his belt, he had a confident, commanding way about him and a directness in his green gaze that hinted at either a background as a military officer, or one in the law. Having been a U.S. marshal for several years, Rafe recognized the probing look, and knew when he was being assessed.
“This here’s Angus Wallace,” Hendricks said, stopping before him. “Although he says most call him Ash because of his hair. Ash, meet Rayford Jessup, the man I told you about.”
“The wizard with horses.” Wallace spoke with a strong Scottish accent, offering a firm handshake and a broad smile. “You’ll be needing magic, so you will, to deal with the lad tearing up the barn.”
“Ash is looking to start a horse breeding ranch up in Colorado,” Hendricks explained. “Heard at the fort I had mustangs, so he and his wife came by to see what was available.”
Rafe didn’t have much admiration for Hendricks’s horses. Mostly scrubs. The decent mustangs had been rounded up years ago, except for a few small herds that roamed back and forth across the border between Texas and Mexico. If the Scotsman was thinking to build a stable with these pickings, he wasn’t as knowledgeable about horses as Rafe had surmised.
Hendricks flinched when he heard a guttural whinny followed by a series of loud thuds and men yelling. “Well, come along,” he said, waving them toward the barn. “Best see if there’s anything you can do.”
As they walked, Hendricks explained that two sage rats had brought in the mustang several days ago. “Nice-looking stud horse. Or was, before they got ahold of him. Animal was tore up good, and mad at the world. We barely got him locked in the stall before all hell broke loose. For two days he kicked and screamed and snapped at anyone who dared open the stall door to throw him some food. Wouldn’t eat or drink. Still won’t eat. Quieted down some yesterday, so I figured we’d try again. But you can hear how well that’s going.”
As they moved out of the glare of the midday sun and into the barn, the air cooled and grew thick with the odors of hay and sweet feed and manure. Comforting, familiar smells that reminded Rafe of his early years on the farm in Missouri. When his eyes adjusted to the gloom, he saw two men standing well back from a stall at the other end of the open center aisle. The stall had a divided door, but as they approached, Rafe could see splintered wood in the bottom half, and blood smears on the upper half where the door hung by a broken hinge.
Another shriek, more thuds rattling the timbers and sending puffs of hay dust sifting down through the gaps in the planked loft floor overhead.
“Don’t go too close,” Hendricks warned. “He’s already taken a bite out of one of my men. Vamoos,” he said to the two Mexican watchers. “See if any more new foals dropped today.”
As the ranch workers left, Rafe stepped up to the broken door. Staying out of kicking or biting range, he peered into the darkened stall.
Crazed eyes stared back.
The animal was a mess. Blood on his mouth where he had bitten chunks out of the door. Scraped knees, hind legs skinned, pasterns red with blood. It was a wonder the horse hadn’t shattered a hoof kicking holes in the walls. Rafe stepped back, almost bumping into the Scotsman who had moved up beside him to study the mustang.
“Bollocks,” Wallace muttered. “I dinna think the puir beast will make it much longer.”
Rafe didn’t either. “What were your plans for him?” he asked, turning to Hendricks.
“Figured to breed him to my mares. Or sell him, if I can get a good price. But can’t do either unless he’s at least broke to halter. That’s why I sent for you.” He met Rafe’s frown with a shrug. “Heard you could break a green colt without raising a hand. Thought maybe you could settle this one.”
Rafe doubted it. The mustang was too mature, too accustomed to running wild, to ever be biddable. And as for breeding, neither his conformation nor his attitude would make him a decent stud. Some horses were best left alone. This was one of them. Reaching into his vest pocket, he fingered the few coins he’d brought with him. “How much you want for him?”
Hendricks named a price that was double what the mustang was worth, even if he could be broken, although broke or not, Rafe doubted the animal would live long enough to attract any buyers.
“I’ll pay you half that,” Wallace broke in.
Rafe looked at him in surprise, wondering if the man knew he was offering good money for a bad animal. He had thought the Scotsman had horse savvy, but apparently he didn’t. Frowning, Rafe stepped back as the two men negotiated.
A wasted trip. He had hoped to pick up enough money to head north, maybe sign on with one of the big ranches along the Chisholm Trail, or find work at the stockyards in Abilene, Kansas. Then once he had enough set by, he’d look for a patch of land in Wyoming Territory where he could plant his stake and start over. Now that he was recovered and strong enough to do hard labor again, he was anxious to put Texas and all the bad memories behind him.
“You’ll stay for supper?” Hendricks called back to Rafe as he walked toward the front doors, several eagles and half-eagles clinking in his palm.
Rafe shook his head. “Thanks anyway.”
“Tell my wife we’ll be leaving, too,” the Scotsman called after him. “I’ll be in directly to help her pack her equipment.”
Seeing Rafe’s curious look, he grinned. “She’s a famous photographer,” he said proudly. “A.M. Wallace. And verra good, so she is. You’ve heard of her, no doubt.”
Rafe hadn’t, but rather than admit it, he gave a noncommittal smile. “What are you going to do with the mustang? I doubt he’ll go calmly.”
“Aye. He’s a wild one, puir lad.” Moving closer to the stall, the Scotsman watched the horse warily as he reached for the slide bar on the lower door. “Mind your feet, Jessup,” he warned in a calm voice. “He’ll be coming out fast.”
“You’re turning him loose?”
“He’s too proud to bend, and I’ll no’ break a horse I dinna need any more than you would. He’ll find his way home. Best stand back now.”
Rafe stepped out of the horse’s pathway to escape.
Wallace slid the bolt and eased back the stall door. Holding it open, he stood against the wall and waited.
At first, nothing. Then a snort.
And suddenly, the mustang burst out of the stall at a dead run. Tufts of hay and dirt clods flew as he raced toward the light at the open end of the barn. A second later, he was tearing across the field, tail up, head raised in a triumphant whinny. Free. Unencumbered. As he was meant to be.
It was a moving sight. One that made Rafe want to race along with him, just to feel the wind in his face and see what was over the next rise. He watched in silent envy until the horse topped the ridge and disappeared from view. Then Wallace startled him with a hard clap on his shoulder.
“So, lad. Where you headed? Back to the family?”
“No family. North, probably.”
Looping an arm over Rafe’s shoulder, the Scotsman steered him back through the barn. “As free as the wind, are ye?”
Wallace made it sound exciting and purposeful, rather than the aimless flight of a man trying to outrun a past too painful to face. “Mostly looking for work.”
“If it’s work you seek, I can offer it. As Hendricks said, I’m putting together a herd.”
“Of mustangs?”
“Thoroughbreds.”
Rafe stopped so abruptly the Scotsman’s arm slid off his shoulder. “In Colorado?” Pure thoroughbreds were magnificent animals. He’d seen less than a handful of them this side of the Mississippi.
“Eventually.” That broad grin again. “But first, I need a wrangler to go wit
h me to get them.”
“Go where?”
“To God’s own heaven.” A rumble of laughter, and a flash of pure delight in those moss green eyes. “Northbridge, in the highlands of Scotland.”
One
SEPTEMBER 1871, MANHATTAN
“You sure?” Rafe asked.
Thomas Redstone nodded.
“But not all of it.”
“It is only hair.”
Crossing his arms over his chest, Rafe shook his head. “It’s more than that, Thomas. It’s part of your identity. Like Wallace’s kilt. Or a priest’s robes. It’s part of who you are.”
“And who am I, nesene?”
“An Indian warrior.”
“I am also white. And to honor my grandfather, I choose now to go the white way.”
“You’re only white when it suits you, Thomas, and you know it. You’re a Cheyenne Dog Soldier. Which is a lot harder to be than white.”
“I know this.” Thomas flashed that rare and startling smile that always caught people off guard. “And I did not earn that name because of my hair.”
Rafe threw his hands up in frustration. “Why are you doing this? Because of whatever happened in Indiana?”
A chill crept into the barbershop. “We will not speak of Prudence Lincoln.”
“Hell.” Rafe knew he treaded dangerous ground. Thomas and the beautiful mulatto had a long history together, only some of which Rafe knew. But something had happened between the two of them in Indiana that had made Thomas decide to continue on to New York, rather than stay for a longer visit with Miss Lincoln, or return home to his mountains in Colorado Territory.
The others traveling with them from Heartbreak Creek to Manhattan had wondered about it, too, but Thomas had rebuffed all questions.
Tait Rylander and his pregnant wife, Lucinda, had made the trip to help Lucinda’s guardian, Mrs. Throckmorton, close up the Manhattan brownstone where they were all staying now; then they would return to Heartbreak Creek. Meanwhile, Ash—or the Earl of Kirkwell, as he was known in Britain—and his countess wife, Maddie, would go on to Scotland to check on the earl’s estate and purchase thoroughbreds for Ash’s horse ranch in Colorado. Rafe had agreed to go with them—as Ash’s wrangler, not Thomas’s nursemaid.
But upon arrival in New York, the Scotsman had asked him to keep an eye on Thomas until their steamer sailed . . . a more difficult task than Rafe had anticipated, since the Cheyenne had a tiresome habit of wandering off whenever the mood struck him.
Like this morning. Luckily, Rafe had tracked him to this barbershop before any damage was done. But now, seeing how adamant Thomas was to cut off the long black hair and feathered topknot that had marked him a Cheyenne warrior, Rafe wasn’t sure what to do.
“What is this really about, Thomas?”
The Indian sat in stony silence for a moment, then sighed. “People stare.”
A laugh burst out before Rafe could stop it. “Hell, Redstone. They’ll always stare. And not because of your hair.” He glanced over at the barber, who watched them with wary curiosity. “Am I right?”
The barber nodded, shook his head, and shrugged all at the same time. An indecisive fellow, it seemed.
“Then why?” Thomas asked.
Rafe couldn’t find the words. There was something about Thomas Redstone—perhaps the utter confidence in the way he spoke and moved and looked at the world. Heads would always turn when he came into a room because without saying a word, he dominated it. Like Tait and Ash and the other men from Heartbreak Creek, he was a strong, resourceful, intelligent man. But with Thomas, there was something more. An unknown factor. None of his friends was quite sure what he would do if pushed too far, or if someone he cared about was threatened.
Rafe had heard the rumors about the leather pouch Thomas had once worn beneath his war shirt. It had purportedly contained the blunted bullet that had killed his wife and son, and the Cheyenne had vowed to return it to the trapper who had fired it—by shoving the piece of metal into the man’s beating heart.
Vengeance. Rafe understood that. It was something they had in common.
No one knew if Thomas had actually carried out that threat, but one day the pouch was gone. When questioned about it, he had simply said, “It is over.”
The Cheyenne warrior was a law unto himself, and because of that, he was a man to reckon with. Even without the topknot and eagle feather, anyone who looked into those dark eyes knew it. “Ash and Tait aren’t going to like it.”
“Ho. You think that will stop me?”
Rafe gave up. “But only to your shoulders. And keep the temple braids. Women love them.”
Thomas smirked. “As do you, it seems.”
Rafe ignored that and waved the barber in.
But as the long black strands fell to the floor, he wondered what had brought Thomas to this decision, and once the change was complete, if it would accomplish all that he had hoped.
A half hour later, they were back on the streets.
And heads were still turning.
“I think it is you they look at,” Thomas teased when a trio of women standing at the window of a dry goods store stopped speaking to stare at them when they walked by. “Women like big men, and your gold hair is prettier.”
“It’s probably the gun.” Realizing the wind that whistled around the buildings had blown open his jacket to expose the six-shooter holstered on his hip, Rafe quickly buttoned the coat, not wanting to draw undue attention. But after the riots in this area two months earlier between Irish Protestants and Catholics, he wasn’t about to go without protection, especially considering the high crime rate with the corrupt Boss Tweed and his Tammany Hall gang in control of the city.
“Not many in this place wear guns,” Thomas noted. “Yet you do.”
“Habit.” But having as little interest in discussing his painful past as a Texas lawman as Thomas did in discussing Prudence Lincoln, Rafe changed the subject. “Ash is making me get a suit. You’ll need one, too, if you expect to eat in the dining room at the castle.”
“What is this castle?”
“Northbridge. A big stone house that the Wallaces have in Scotland. You do know Ash is the Earl of Kirkwell, don’t you?”
“I know he has many names and one is earl.”
“Earl is more of a title. Like chief.”
“He still has too many names. And he likes to wear a skirt.”
“Kilt.” Rafe grinned down at the Cheyenne. “And maybe as payment for taking you with us to Scotland, he’ll expect you to wear one, too.”
“Ho. I will not do it.”
Rafe laughed. “We’ll see. Let’s start with a suit first. And real shoes.”
Although Thomas had set aside his war shirt and leggings in favor of denim trousers, a collarless work shirt, and a blue cavalry jacket with the sleeves cut off—God knows where he got that—he still wore knee-high fringed moccasins with a long, sheathed knife laced on the outside. Even with the shorter hair, he stood out like a two-headed wonder among these city dwellers.
Opening the door of a tailor’s shop, he ushered the Indian into the dark-paneled store with bolts of fabric stacked on shelves. Several headless, life-sized, wirework figures modeled fine suits of clothing, including boots.
Thomas stopped inside the door and glared at the figures. “I do not like this place,” he announced, and turning, left the shop.
With a sigh, Rafe followed him. “I know someplace you will like,” he said, falling in beside the Cheyenne as they walked up Fifth Avenue toward the Central Park project. “They have lakes and bridges and even a sheep meadow.”
“Good hunting, then?”
Rafe looked at him in alarm. “No. No hunting. Not anywhere in the city.”
“Then why do they keep sheep there?”
“For show.”
“Like
Pringle.”
“Exactly.”
Pringle was the ancient butler at the Sixty-ninth Street brownstone owned by their hostess, Mrs. Throckmorton. He and Thomas had gotten off on the wrong foot upon their arrival the previous night when Pringle had answered their knock, saw the Indian on the steps, shrieked, and tried to slam the heavy front door in his face.
Then this morning, Ash had informed them that the old codger would be going with them to Scotland as his manservant, which amused Tait Rylander no end. Apparently he had dealt with Pringle before. Rafe figured it was only a matter of time before something dire happened. And not to Thomas.
After a long traipse through the park, he and Thomas were back at Mrs. Throckmorton’s brownstone, waiting impatiently for Pringle to answer their knock. The haughty butler was as slow as Christmas.
When the door finally opened, the old man glowered at Thomas, then hiked his pointed nose. “Yes?”
“Just open the door,” Rafe snapped.
“And who may I say is calling?”
“The man who’s keeping this Indian from slitting your throat.”
With an affronted glare, Pringle opened the door.
Ash was crossing the entry as they stepped inside. When he caught sight of Thomas, he stopped dead. “You cut your hair.”
“But I will not wear a skirt.” Elbowing Pringle aside, the Cheyenne stalked toward the kitchen at the back of the house.
“Kilt,” the Scotsman called after him. “And I dinna ask you to.” Turning back to Rafe, he asked what that was about.
“He wants to look white. Says he’s tired of being stared at.” Rafe unbuckled his gun belt, and ignoring Pringle’s sniff of disapproval, hung it on the hall tree by the door. “He wouldn’t let the tailor fit him for a suit, either.”
“Bluidy hell.” Realizing the butler was listening to their conversation, Ash waved him away. “Dismissed, Pringle.”
The butler made a deep, sneering bow. “Thank you, your lordship. Should you have need of me, I shall be in the back, scraping manure off your boots.”
