A Texas Hill Country Christmas

by William W. Johnstone

  Delta Kennedy never would have expected it, but she had to admit that the tree looked rather festive once it was set up in a washtub full of dirt in the front room of her house. Maybe the German settlers in the area had a good idea about this Christmas tradition after all.

  The day before, after Seth Barrett and Charlie had set up the tree in the house, Delta had decorated it with as many bows as she could make from her supply of ribbons. That made the tree colorful, and its sharp but pleasant scent filled the house. Charlie had asked if they could do this every year. She had told him that they would have to wait and see, but it wasn’t a bad idea, she mused now as she sat at the table, lingering over a second cup of coffee. Charlie had gone out to the henhouse to collect the morning’s eggs. That was one of the chores he always handled.

  Delta smiled to herself as she thought about how nice the previous afternoon had been. Charlie and Seth seemed to really like each other, and there was no denying the warm glow she felt inside when she was around the pastor.

  As he was leaving, he’d clasped her hand for a second and smiled at her, and the tingle that went through her told her he was right. Maybe it really was time for her to get on with her life, and if that included a good man . . . well, she truly didn’t believe her late husband would have objected even a little.

  The sound of a horse splashing through the puddles outside made Delta lift her head. Maybe Seth had come for another visit, she thought as she stood up. She looked down at the thick robe she wore and wished she had already gotten dressed this morning. Usually she had by this time. She ran a hand over her dark brown hair, trying to smooth it.

  Someone knocked on the door.

  Delta had a smile on her face as she turned the latch and opened the door. That smile faltered as she realized her visitor wasn’t Seth Barrett after all.

  Felix Dugan stood there on her porch, water dripping off his slicker. He clutched his wet hat in both hands. His horse stood in front of the house with its head drooping.

  “Good mornin’, Miz Kennedy,” the burly rancher said. He put a smile on his face, but it didn’t look too comfortable on his bulldog features. “Merry Christmas to you, ma’am.”

  “Merry Christmas to you as well, Mr. Dugan,” Delta said. She was sincere in the wish. Dugan’s manner could be arrogant and overbearing at times, and she didn’t return the romantic interest he obviously felt for her, but she didn’t harbor any ill feelings toward the man. “What brings you here this morning?”

  “I’ve come to extend an invitation to you, ma’am. I’d be mighty pleased and honored if you and your boy would come over to my ranch and have Christmas dinner with me tomorrow.”

  The invitation took Delta by surprise, but she didn’t have to think about what her answer was going to be. She had already decided that she and Charlie would take the wagon to the church later today and ask Seth to share Christmas with them. What she had to do now was figure out a way to turn down Felix Dugan without insulting and angering him.

  Her mind raced as she tried to do that, but before she could say anything her train of thought was interrupted by the sound of a sudden cry from the henhouse.

  Her head jerked in that direction as her heart leaped in fear. Charlie sounded like he was hurt or scared or both. She saw him burst through the henhouse door and start toward her at a run.

  “Charlie!” she exclaimed.

  The boy had taken only a couple of steps when a figure appeared behind him, moving fast. Delta had never seen the man before. He wore a dark suit and hat and a holstered gun hung at his hip. He lunged after Charlie, reached out, and clamped his left hand on the youngster’s shoulder. Roughly, he jerked Charlie to a stop and slung him on the ground at his feet.

  “What in blazes!” Dugan roared. He dropped his hat on the porch and reached for his own gun. “Leave that boy alone, you no-good sidewinder!”

  Dugan had reached the top step and his revolver had just started to clear leather when the stranger’s gun appeared in his hand almost as if by magic. A shot crashed as flame spurted from the muzzle. Dugan grunted and rocked back against Delta, who was instinctively trying to get to her son as well.

  The collision almost made her fall. She tried to grab Dugan and hold him up, but he weighed too much. He slipped out of her hands and slumped to the porch at her feet, rolling onto his back so she could see the spreading bloodstain on his shirt. Delta clapped her hands to her cheeks and screamed in shock and horror as she realized that Dugan was badly hurt.

  But the rancher’s gun had slid out of its holster as he collapsed, and when Delta’s gaze fell on the weapon, she started to bend down and reach for it.

  “Don’t do it, lady!” the stranger warned. He grabbed Charlie by the collar and hauled the boy to his feet again. Charlie seemed dazed now, as if he barely understood what was going on.

  Delta didn’t understand, either. She had no idea who the man was or why he was here, why he wanted to threaten her son and shoot Felix Dugan.

  Delta gasped as the man pressed the barrel of his revolver to Charlie’s head.

  “You step clear of that gun, ma’am, and don’t even think about making a try for it,” he ordered in a powerful voice. “I don’t want to hurt you or your boy, but I will if I have to.”

  Despite the dampness that hung in the air, Delta’s lips had gone dry as a bone from fear. She had to lick them a couple of times before she managed to say, “Please . . . please don’t shoot. Whatever you want . . . just take it.”

  The man grinned, but it was more of a self-satisfied smirk. He said, “I’ve got what I want . . . for now. The boy’s going with me.”

  “Ma!” Charlie wailed. “Ma, don’t let him take me!”

  Delta’s heart hammered so hard it seemed like it would burst out of her chest. She wanted to scream and cry, but she forced herself to remain calm.

  “You can’t do that,” she told the stranger. “He’s just a little boy.”

  “I reckon I can do whatever I please,” the man said. “I’ve got the gun.”

  At Delta’s feet, Felix Dugan groaned in a vivid reminder of just how much damage that gun could do. Delta glanced down at the rancher. His face was pale and drawn in lines of pain. His eyes were open but unfocused. Delta could tell that he didn’t know what was going on around him. He was probably dying.

  She wanted to do what she could to help him, but Charlie was more important to her. She turned her attention back to the stranger and said, “Take me instead. Let my son go.”

  The man clucked his tongue and shook his head.

  “It’s a tempting offer, Mrs. Kennedy. You’re a very beautiful woman. But I’m engaged to be married.”

  Under the circumstances, that seemed like a ludicrous thing to say. Delta couldn’t imagine any woman agreeing to marry this monster, no matter how smoothly handsome he might be on the surface.

  “No, the boy will do just fine for my purposes,” the man went on. “Besides, I have another job for you.”

  “I’ll do anything you want. I give you my word. Just let Charlie go.”

  He went on as if he hadn’t heard her, “What you need to do is go see Sam Brant and tell him what’s happened here this morning. Tell him to ride toward Enchanted Rock and to bring what he took from me. He’ll be met along the way. When I’ve got what’s mine, you’ll get what’s yours . . . your boy, safe and sound.”

  Delta stared at him, still struggling to control the hysteria she felt edging into her brain. She said, “I . . . I don’t know anyone named Sam Brant. This is all some sort of terrible mistake—”

  “It’s no mistake,” the man cut in, and now his lips curled in a feral snarl. “You know Sam Brant, all right. He calls himself Seth Barrett now and tries to make everybody think he’s some sort of sky pilot. But he’s really just a no-good outlaw, and he always will be.”

  Delta had to put a hand down on the porch railing to steady herself as the stranger’s words rocked her. Seth . . . an outlaw? That didn’t seem possible. She ha
d seen his goodness demonstrated time and again.

  “You go tell him what I said,” the gunman went on as he began moving toward the trees. “You tell him to come by nightfall, or else I won’t be responsible for what happens.”

  “No!” Delta cried. She started down the porch steps, and as she did, she felt a hard drop of rain strike her cheek. “No, please—”

  Big drops hit her, again and again, as more men appeared, coming out of the trees on horseback. Several of them pointed guns at her as she stumbled toward them.

  Charlie began to struggle. His captor holstered the gun and used both hands to lift the boy and swing him up in front of one of the other men. That one clamped an arm around Charlie so tight that he cried out in pain.

  Delta screamed and rushed toward the stranger while his back was turned. He swung around, caught her arms as she tried to claw at him, and threw her down in the mud. It was raining hard now.

  “You know what you’ve got to do,” the man told her as he looked down at her. He turned away and took the reins of a riderless horse that one of the other men handed to him. Delta lay there whimpering as they mounted up and rode away, taking Charlie with them.

  Slowly, she forced herself to her feet, then stumbled toward the porch where Felix Dugan still lay bleeding.

  Seth was doing some preliminary work for the next Sunday’s sermon—it was never too early to start thinking about such things—but he was having a hard time keeping his mind on the Scriptures he studied. He kept thinking about what a wonderful time he’d had with Delta and Charlie the day before. It would have been easy just to stay there, basking in the warmth of their companionship, instead of coming back here to this empty parsonage....

  “All right,” he said out loud as he forced his attention back to the Bible open on his lap as he sat in the rocking chair near the fireplace. “Sunday will be two days before the new year starts, so there’s got to be some verses somewhere about how we need to renew our faith. The first day of the year is a perfect time for that.”

  Rain hammered on the roof. It was so loud, in fact, that at first he didn’t realize someone was pounding on the front door, too.

  Who would come out in a deluge like the one moving over the Hill Country today? Seth asked himself. Then he sat up straighter as he thought that maybe someone had come to warn him the creek was rising again. It wasn’t just possible, it was likely the way the rain was falling. He was confident that the wall of sandbags would hold, but it wouldn’t hurt to check.

  He closed the Bible, set it aside, and stood up. As he started toward the door, he called, “I’m coming.”

  The sight that greeted him as he swung the door open shocked him to his core. Delta Kennedy stood there, soaked to the skin, her head uncovered so that her hair was plastered to her head in limp strands. She glared at him with something very much like hatred in her eyes.

  “Delta!” Seth exclaimed. “What . . . why. . . .”

  A saddled horse stood in the yard between the church and the parsonage. The animal seemed familiar to him, and it was with another shock that Seth recognized it as the big, black horse Felix Dugan usually rode.

  “He took him,” Delta said in a hoarse voice.

  “Took . . . who?”

  “Charlie. The man took him. The man with the gun.”

  It was cold outside, as it ought to be in December, but the chill that suddenly filled Seth’s body had nothing to do with the temperature.

  “He told me to come here and talk to you,” Delta went on. “He said he would kill Charlie unless you rode toward Enchanted Rock and brought what you stole from him with you.”

  Seth didn’t have to ask her to describe the man who had kidnapped Charlie. There was only one man Seth knew who was evil enough to do a thing like that.

  “What else did he say?” Seth asked in a flat, hard voice.

  Delta glared wildly at him. She said, “He told me your name is really Sam Brant. He said you’re nothing but a no-good outlaw!”

  “He’s right,” Seth said.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Even as furious and terrified as Delta obviously was, Seth’s words penetrated to her brain and made her stare at him in disbelief.

  “You can’t be an outlaw,” she said. “You’re a preacher.”

  “Only since I came here. Before that . . . I was everything that man said I was.”

  Cold wind whistled through the open doorway. Seth realized that Delta was standing there soaked to the skin. She ran the risk of catching a chill. She probably didn’t care about that right now, but he did.

  “Come inside,” he told her. “You need to sit over by the fire and dry off some.”

  Without thinking, he reached out to put his hand on her upper arm and guide her into the house. She jerked away from him. Her lips twisted, and for a second she looked like she wanted to spit at him.

  “Don’t touch me,” she said in a low voice. “Don’t you dare touch me, you liar.”

  The harsh accusation made Seth want to bristle. Maybe he had never told her the truth, but he had never actually lied to her, either.

  He controlled the reaction and kept his voice calm and soft as he said again, “Please, come over by the fire. Tell me everything that happened, and I’ll do anything to help.”

  “He’s dead, you know,” Delta said.

  “Charlie?” That was a shock like a physical blow. “No, that can’t be. He’s too valuable—”

  “Felix Dugan,” Delta interrupted. “He’s dead. He’s lying on the porch of my house with a bullet hole in his chest where that man shot him.”

  “Hudson,” Seth breathed. “His name is Oliver Hudson. I don’t have to see him to know that.”

  “I don’t care what his name is. All I know is that he has Charlie.”

  Seth was sickened by the knowledge that his former partner had gunned down Felix Dugan. In a way it was his fault, he thought. Dugan would still be alive if Sam Brant hadn’t stopped here in the Hill Country and dared to hope he could make a new life for himself here, with a new name.

  Delta was shuddering from the cold as Seth said for the third time, “Please, come over by the fire.”

  This time she did it. She sat down in the same rocking chair where Seth had been studying the Scriptures a few minutes earlier. Almost immediately, the heat from the fire made her wet clothes start to steam.

  Seth knelt in front of her and said grimly, “Tell me what happened.”

  “We don’t have time for that,” she insisted. “You have to go after them. You have to help Charlie.”

  “I will, I swear. And I promise that Hudson won’t hurt the boy. He’s pure evil, but he’s smart. He knows he has to keep Charlie alive in order to get me to do what he wants.”

  “What is it he wants? What is it you stole from him?”

  Seth took a deep breath and said, “Money, of course. When I left the bunch that had been riding with me, I took all the loot we had cached from the jobs we’d pulled.”

  “You mean the robberies.”

  Seth shrugged.

  “You’re a vile, contemptible man.”

  “I won’t argue with that, either,” Seth said in a half-whisper.

  Delta stared at him for a moment, breathing hard, then said, “He was waiting in the henhouse, I guess. He must have been spying on us. He knew that would be the easiest place to grab Charlie. He was out there when Mr. Dugan came to call on us. Then Charlie must have gotten away from him. . . . He came out and caught Charlie, and Mr. Dugan tried to draw his gun, and the man shot him. . . . There were other men with him, and he put Charlie up on a horse with one of them. He told me to tell you to ride toward Enchanted Rock and someone would meet you. He said you had to bring what you stole with you or he . . . he would kill Charlie.”

  “He’s not going to kill Charlie,” Seth said. He made his voice as firm and reassuring as he could. “He’s a cold-blooded murderer, yes. That’s one reason I knew we couldn’t ride together anymore. But he only kil
ls for a good reason. He won’t hurt Charlie.”

  “How can you be sure of that?”

  “Because Hudson wants the money. Nothing is more important to him than that.”

  “Then give it to him!” Delta cried.

  Seth looked at her as a couple of long seconds went by, then he said, “I can’t. I don’t have it anymore.”

  “What?” Her eyes widened in disbelief. “What happened to it?”

  “It’s here,” Seth said. He moved a hand to indicate their surroundings. “Well, only a little here in the parsonage. A lot more of it went to fix up the church. That’s what paid for all the repairs I’ve done since I came here. And the rest of it went to folks in the congregation who needed it. There are a lot of families around here who need help in little ways. It all added up.” He hesitated. “Like when your bill at the store was paid, and Mr. Truesdale wouldn’t tell you who did it.”

  “You paid that bill?” Delta asked. Her tone hardened. “With stolen money?”

  “Money that I was trying to make do some good.”

  “If you really wanted to do good, you’d have given it back to who it belonged to!”

  “I thought about that,” Seth said honestly. “But most of it came from the railroads and the banks, and I knew they’d already made good on most of the losses. I know it wasn’t right . . . but it just seemed better this way.”

  “You didn’t want to go to jail, that’s all,” Delta said.

  “I never fancied spending years behind bars,” Seth admitted.

  “So you pretended to be a preacher—”

  This time Seth couldn’t stop himself. He broke in, “No. I haven’t been pretending. I answered the Lord’s call. I am a preacher.”

  “You expect me to believe that?”

  “I don’t expect anything, but it’s the truth.” Seth straightened up, reached over to take hold of a ladderback chair, and swung it around so he could sit close to Delta. He lowered himself onto the chair and clasped his hands together in front of him, between his knees. Peering earnestly at her, he went on, “I was on my own ever since I was a kid. I learned how to steal and do whatever I had to in order to get by. I’m not making any excuses, though. A lot of youngsters have hard lives and don’t grow up to be outlaws.”