Cherish

by Catherine Anderson

  Gib held up his hands. “I’m not saying you should. I’m just saying you’ve paid me to get the job done, and I’ve done it. You’ve gotten their land, extended your boundaries, and have one of the biggest spreads in northern New Mexico. All thanks to me.”

  “With one big exception, the Lunas’ parcels, which just happen to have the water I need.”

  “Hey, it’s not my fault they were smarter than you gave them credit for!” Gib said with a laugh.

  George couldn’t argue the point. The Lunas had seen what was happening to all their neighbors and had decided to get out while the getting was still good, selling their parcels for a decent market price to that religious sect back east. Now George had a group of fanatics to contend with, a stickier problem, by far, than no-account greasers. The sheriff might get a little more upset when it was a passel of white U.S. citizens who were murdered.

  And murdered, the fanatics would be. George couldn’t risk being linked to any of this church business. A dozen of the sect members had already died in Colorado, and he had orchestrated their deaths. If he sent in men to attack that farm and allowed anyone there to live, that person might start putting the facts together, realize the two attacks were related, and then figure out who stood to gain from the results. George Hess wasn’t about to dance at the end of a hangman’s rope.

  “I want that land,” he told Gib gruffly. “No loose ends, no problems rearing up to bite me in the ass later. You understand?”

  “Spencer is a mean son of a bitch, and he’s one of the fastest I’ve ever seen. I don’t risk dying cheap, Hess. You want me to take him, you’re gonna increase my pay substantially.”

  “Maybe I don’t want you to take him. Be simpler to just wait until he rides out and then settle our business with the Bible thumpers.”

  “And have him get wind of it, then come back here after my ass? No way! Right now, he thinks the attack in that arroyo was random—just some no-account skunks who got wind of the money those folks were carrying. But the minute something happens here, he’ll put it all together. When he does, you’re a dead man. I’m not going to be buried with you.”

  George thrummed his fingers on the chair arm. For the most part, he seldom felt intimidated by only one man, no matter how fast with a gun. But Race Spencer wasn’t your average leather slapper. Judging by his reputation, the man had two traits that made him far more dangerous than most, intelligence and ethics. Gib was right. Spencer would be the type to return to Santa Fe to right a wrong, and George wanted no loose ends.

  “He’s real taken with that blond gal,” Gib pointed out, still arguing his case. “Watches over her like a mother hen. Even if he doesn’t leave her behind, we’ll be killing all her church folks. That isn’t going to make her very happy. I don’t want the bastard gunnin’ for me later to avenge her people, and that’s exactly what he’d do.”

  “All right!” George cried. “Just shut up. I’m trying to think.”

  “Excuse me all to hell.”

  George sighed and met Gib’s gaze. “I understand your concerns. Now try to understand mine, that being can you take him? He got the best of you and a goodly number of men up in Colorado. And judging by his reputation, he’s one fast son of a bitch. In a fair fight, I’m not sure you can take him.”

  Gib chuckled. “Pardon me, boss, but do I have ‘dunce’ printed in red across my forehead? Who mentioned fair? I’m not gonna pace it off with the bastard. He’s too good. He’ll be one man against eight. None of those church people are going to lift a hand against us! We’ll lure Spencer out to face us, put a couple of slugs each in his hide, then do our business with the fanatics. Trust me. I know what I’m doing.”

  “So does he. That’s what worries me. You’re used to outsmarting dumb leather slappers, and it’s made you arrogant. Spencer is not dumb.”

  Gib grinned. “Spencer has a loyal streak a mile wide. In the gunslinging business, that isn’t a real smart way to be. In his case, it’s going to get him killed.” Gib finished off his brandy. “He’s the kind who’ll walk straight into flying lead rather than stand aside while his woman is being roughed up, and I know how to make a skirt sing out real pretty. He’ll come to me, and when he does, he’s a dead man.”

  Chapter 22

  Race smiled to himself as he ran the currycomb over Dusty’s flank. Seventeen and eighteen years old respectively, Matthew and John Patterson, the sons of Race’s host and hostess, were bantering back and forth in the center aisle of the barn as they forked straw into the barn stalls. As young men everywhere often do, they were boasting to each other of their physical prowess, their claims growing more and more unbelievable with each exchange. If it got much deeper, Race was going to holler for a shovel.

  “You call that impressive?” John cried. “I can chop three cords of wood without resting and never break a sweat.”

  Gazing over the top rail of the enclosure, Race studied John’s face, noted the sheen of perspiration on the young man’s forehead, and nearly chuckled aloud as he resumed currying his horse. If the young man broke a sweat pitching straw, it stood to reason that he probably poured sweat while chopping wood.

  “Oh, yeah?” Matthew retorted. “Well, I once chopped five cords of wood without stopping to rest. And when I finished, I wasn’t even tired. If you don’t believe me, go ask Pa.”

  Race shook his head. Rebecca’s church folks looked strange, and when you first got to know them, they seemed strange. But after being around them for five days, Race was starting to realize they really weren’t so different, after all. Young men everywhere had to flex their muscles, and their most used muscle was usually their tongue.

  As Race recalled, he’d never engaged in boasting matches, not so much because he’d been above it, but because his life hadn’t allowed him the luxury. At John’s age, he’d been eighteen going on fifty, already making his living by hiring out his gun, a profession that, by its very nature, precluded bragging. Sooner or later, a boastful gunslinger found himself having to back up his brag with fact.

  “Hey, Mr. Spencer,” John called. “How many cords of wood can you chop without resting?”

  Race straightened to look over the stall partition at the young men. “If I’m feelin’ my oats when I start, maybe a half-cord. You fellas flat have me beat, hands down.” Both youths had the good grace to look shamefaced, their beardless cheeks turning pink with embarrassment. Race turned back to comb out Dusty’s mane. “I reckon it’s all the good cookin’ you growed up on. Bound to make a difference, don’t you think? My ma died when I was a tyke, so I never got good grub in my growin’ up years. Made me kinda puny, I reckon.”

  “I wouldn’t go so far as to say you’re puny. But you are right about one thing.” Matthew came to fold his arms atop the closed stall door. “Our ma is a fine cook, isn’t she? That dessert she made last night was so good I went back for thirds.”

  “It was mighty good,” Race said in all sincerity, a smile tugging at his mouth as he recalled how much more responsively Rebecca had swallowed last night when he had poked a spoonful of the milk-thinned chocolate pudding in her mouth. “Even Rebecca liked it.”

  “That’s why Ma made it, I think,” John observed, joining his brother at the stall door. “Rebecca always has loved her chocolate.”

  Matthew grinned. “You remember the time she sneaked the spoonful of cocoa powder?”

  John threw back his head and laughed. “She thought it would taste good, and of course, it didn’t. Tasted so bad, in fact, she gasped, got it up her nose and down her throat. She almost strangled.”

  Race left off currying the horse to lean against the stall partition. He enjoyed hearing stories of Rebecca’s life before he’d met her. “I never knew she loved chocolate so much.”

  “Oh,” Matthew said, “she’s the worst! Anything with chocolate in it, and that girl lays back her ears and dives right in.”

  “You just wait and see, Mr. Spencer,” John inserted. “Ma will have her set to rights in no
time.”

  Race believed John might be right about that. Nessa Patterson, a plump, rosy-cheeked woman with twinkling brown eyes and hair nearly as dark as Race’s own, had been working tirelessly these last five days to prepare nourishing meals for Rebecca. Meat and vegetables ground to a paste consistency and thinned with broth. Mashed fruits thinned with juice. So far, Race could detect no improvement in his wife’s emotional state, but there was no question that she had benefitted physically. Thanks to Sister Nessa’s efforts, Rebecca had gotten some color back in her cheeks and was regaining some of the weight she’d lost, which gave Race reason to feel far less worried. As long as his wife got all the food her body required, she wasn’t likely to weaken and die, as the doctor from Cutter Gulch had predicted. And where there was life, there was hope.

  For that reason alone, Race thanked God that he’d brought Rebecca here. Never having cared for a baby, Race hadn’t thought about grinding and mashing foods. Nessa Patterson had fed Rebecca a full meal the very first night and had been preparing her three full meals a day ever since, with all kinds of snacks in between.

  As if he read Race’s thoughts, Matthew said, “Set to rights? Poor Rebecca’s going to wake up with two chins just like Ma.”

  Race chuckled in spite of himself. Nessa was a well-rounded figure of a woman, no question about it. “I don’t care if Rebecca wakes up with three chins.” Race’s throat went suddenly tight, for he meant that with all his heart. He didn’t care if Rebecca was fat or skinny. Hell, he didn’t care if she developed warts. Just as long as she was, he’d take her any way he could get her. “Thanks to your ma, Rebecca’s not gonna sicken and die now before she has a chance to get well. She’s quite a woman, your ma. You best be glad you got her.”

  John grinned and elbowed his brother, who was a tad plump. “Look who’s talking about two chins. You’re about there yourself.”

  Matthew straightened suddenly. “Ma’s hollering for us.”

  John turned to listen as well, his smile slowly fading. After a moment, he frowned slightly. “That’s not Ma. It sounds like—” He shoved away from the stall door. “Something’s wrong!”

  Race heard it then as well. Faint shouts, then screaming. He burst out of the stall to run after the boys up the aisle. As the three of them spilled from the barn into the bright morning sunlight, the sounds became more audible. Angry shouts, frightened screams. As Race ran toward the back door of the Pattersons’ house, he saw smoke spiraling into the sky. A fire? The Patterson house looked fine. But something was burning. It looked to Race as if the smoke were coming from the opposite side of the common.

  Just as Race and the boys reached the Pattersons’ back porch, several gunshots cracked in the crisp morning air. At the sounds, Race’s skin prickled. The Brothers in Christ owned rifles but used them only for hunting game. They wouldn’t be firing weapons out in the common.

  John struggled to open the back door, his shaking hands fumbling with the knob. Once in the kitchen, the young man staggered to a halt, his face turning white. Race’s stomach dropped as he reeled to a stop beside him. The kitchen bore signs of a struggle, two chairs tipped sideways, a china plate lying shattered on the floor.

  “Ma? Pa?” Matthew came to a stop next to his brother, his face draining of color. “Dear God, what happened in here?”

  Rebecca. His ears ringing with the report of more gunfire out in the common, Race rushed through the house toward the front bedroom where he and Rebecca had been sleeping since their arrival at the farm. As he passed through the dining room and sitting room, Race saw more signs of a struggle, a lamp, surrounded by spilled oil, lying broken on the floor, furniture tipped over, the front door hanging ajar by one hinge. Out in the common, he saw horsemen riding past, firing their guns into the air, the dust of churning hooves drifting into the room, interspersed with screams and the gunfire.

  Since coming to the farm, Race had removed his guns and hadn’t worn them since. They were in the bedroom closet with his saddlebags, the gun belt hanging on a wall hook, his Henry propped in the corner.

  Even as Race hurried across the sitting room to the bedroom, his legs went watery with alarm. The door stood open. In and of itself, that wasn’t strange because Nessa kept an eye on Rebecca whenever Race left the house. No, what struck terror into Race was the chaotic disarray that he saw beyond the doorway—the quilts that had covered Rebecca jerked partly off the bed and trailing onto the floor, the lamp and clock on the bedside table knocked over, the water glass that Nessa kept filled and handily positioned beside the bed lying overturned near Rebecca’s pillow.

  “Angels above,” John whispered shakily, “where is she?”

  Once inside the bedroom, Race skidded to a stop and cast a frantic look around. Rebecca? She was gone. Since he knew damned well that she hadn’t left on her own and doubted that Nessa or Gerald Patterson would have moved her for any reason, the only possible explanation was that someone had come in here and taken her.

  Race ran to the window and swept aside the curtains to look out. Beyond the glass he saw church members, men, women, and children, running this way and that like a flock of panicked black sheep, two men on horseback herding them into groups. Scanning the houses that encircled the common, Race saw other men kicking open doors, still others emerging from yawning doorways with the terrified occupants of the houses scurrying before them at gunpoint. Sweet Jesus. Race saw another man galloping his horse around the edge of the yard. In one hand he held several burning torches, which he was tossing, one at a time, onto the shingled roofs of the houses.

  Race whirled away from the window and advanced on the closet, half afraid he’d find his weapons gone. When he jerked open the door, relief flooded through him. He grabbed his gun belt from the wall hook and strapped it around his hips. Rebecca. Oh, sweet Lord in heaven. She was out there somewhere. If she was aware on any level, she had to be terrified. This would be enough to ensure she never recovered, that she’d remain an empty shell for the rest of her life.

  “What are you doing?” Matthew called from the doorway that opened into the sitting room. “Mr. Spencer, what have you in mind to do?”

  Race made no reply, figuring it was fairly obvious what he meant to do. As he frantically rifled through his saddlebags for his extra ammunition, he kept seeing the men outside in his mind’s eye, their tan leather clothing, the fringe, and the tarnished conchae. Idiot! Never once had he stopped to consider the possibility that the ruffians who had attacked Rebecca’s wagon train might have been hired guns, sent by someone from Santa Fe to prevent that church money from reaching the members here. Papa and the other brethren were so very careful to keep the money we were transporting a secret, Rebecca had told him. They installed the fake floor in the Petersens’ wagon by dark of night. I can’t think how the ruffians learned that we were carrying church funds.

  “You boys know who those men work for?” Race asked Matthew as he checked his Henry to be sure it was loaded.

  “The big man—the one wearing the buckskin jacket and mounted on the bay—his name is George Hess. He’s a cattle rancher in these parts.”

  Race nearly groaned aloud. He knew of Hess. Growing up on the streets of Santa Fe as a kid, he’d hated the man, in fact. George Hess, a big auger, one of the richest ranchers in the territory. The night his mother had died and Race had run to the saloon for help, it had been Hess and some of his hired hands who refused to stir themselves from their drinks and poker games to help a half-breed Apache squaw who was bleeding to death out in the alley. The man was a racially prejudiced bastard.

  Oh, God, Race thought. Why didn’t I stop to think? It was so apparent to him now—so horribly apparent. Land. Granted, the disputes over grazing land in the northern New Mexico territory were, in his opinion, still in their infancy. Race expected to see the grasslands here run red with blood before it was all over. But it certainly wasn’t as if the land grabbing hadn’t already begun. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo that granted certain Mexican
families parcels of prime ranch land in New Mexico was a sore point with many of the Anglo cattlemen, and some of them were already taking matters into their own hands to drive the Mexicans out.

  “Did the church buy all this land from Mexicans?” Race demanded to know.

  Matthew raked a hand through his hair. “I don’t—yes, come to think of it, yes. A family named Luna owned all of these parcels. I never met them, but that’s a Spanish name, isn’t it?”

  Race was so furious with himself that he wanted to put his fist through something. If the money doesn’t reach the church members in Santa Fe by early spring, the church will go bankrupt. The brethren won’t be able to plant crops or make their land payment to the bank. They’ll lose everything.

  Race was shaking as he returned to the window. They’ll lose everything. Everything…the tracts of land. Without that money, the brethren would have been forced to pull up stakes in the spring, leaving all of these parcels abandoned. Some ambitious, greedy rancher could have come in after they pulled out and purchased these parcels for a little bit of nothing, increasing his holdings, nicely, tidily, and legally. Only Race had unwittingly foiled that plan by beating the ruffians at their own game up in Colorado and then bringing the money south before spring, thereby preventing the church from going bankrupt. By doing so, he had sealed these people’s fates.

  After ripping the curtains from the rod with a furious sweep of his hand, Race broke out the windowpane with the butt of his Henry. The cacophony of screams and shooting in the common drowned out the sound of shattering glass.

  One thing George Hess hadn’t counted on if he attacked this farm was to encounter a godless, gun-toting visitor who might fight back. And fight back, Race would. They had his wife out there, damn them, not to mention a horde of innocent, harmless people. Children, for Christ’s sake.

  “What are you doing?” John cried from the bedroom doorway. “We don’t believe in violence, Mr. Spencer. You can’t use that rifle.”