Eve's voice spilled out hoarse and thready. "I see you looking at me. Thinking I'm no good. But you try keeping a son fed and clothed in this town. I worked, worked hard. I washed dishes, clothes. I did work in a laundry like I told you, until Jamie got sick. I had to miss days and nights to tend to him. He needed medicine that I couldn't afford to buy. It took a long time for him to recover. And when he did, I found they'd given my job to someone else."
Eve clapped a hand over her mouth to muffle a dry sob. "Jamie got so thin. He would wake in the night, crying for milk, and mine had dried up. I had nothing to give him but water thickened with flour."
"You did what you had to," Rebecca said hugging her fiercely. "I won't believe a loving God would find sin in a mother trying to save her child." She felt sick inside. "If I had a baby..."
A thickness lodged in her throat as she remembered that there would probably never be a child of her own. "I would do anything to keep my baby safe," she went on. "I'd steal... I'd..."
She threw Shaw a defiant look. "Yes, I'd sell my body, if I had to."
"I wanted to go home," Eve rasped. "But I was afraid... afraid Poppa would close the door in my face."
"Don't, don't blame yourself." Rebecca's vision blurred with tears. "We're the guilty ones. We should have been there for you. Me, Poppa, the boys..."
"One thing I need to know," Shaw said. "Becca needs to hear it. And this time, we want the truth. Who is Jamie's father?"
Eve gave him a hard look. "You'd not ask that, Shaw MacCade, not if you'd ever seen my Jamie's face."
A chill ran down Rebecca's spine. It couldn't be true. If Shaw was guilty, then everything they had together was as empty as a glass of river mist. "You told everyone your baby was Shaw's," Rebecca said, trying to keep her voice from cracking. "You told Poppa that, me. But it was a lie. I know that it wasn't Shaw. But why did you say it?"
"Why?" Eve's brittle laugh made gooseflesh raise on the nape of Rebecca's neck. "Because Shaw had gone west," Eve said. "Everybody said he'd never come back. I was afraid if I told the truth, Poppa would kill..."
"Who? Kill who?" Rebecca demanded. She was shaking with relief, weak as a newborn kitten.
Eve sank back onto the pillow and stared at her with hollow eyes. "Shaw's guessed who's responsible, haven't you?"
He nodded. "I believe I have."
"Jamie's a MacCade, all right," Eve said. "I wrote it in my Bible, James Raeburn MacCade. Funny thing was, I didn't tell on him. But they found out and killed him anyway."
"Laird." Shaw came to stand by the bed. "Jamie's Laird's son, isn't he?"
Eve moaned. "I loved Laird. Really, really loved him. He was the only one I ever let... He swore he loved me, promised we'd run away and get married. But he kept making excuses. You MacCades are good at making promises you can't keep."
"Who did it?" Shaw asked her. "Who shot my brother?"
Dewey rubbed his eyes. "Kin I jest have my money? I'm awful sleepy."
Shaw motioned him to be still. "Later, boy. You sleep here tonight. I'll give you your money in the morning." Shaw turned his attention back to Eve. "Who killed Laird, Eve?"
She shook her head. "I don't know. It might have been Poppa or one of the boys. It could have been Uncle Quinn. All I know is that he was found dead, shot with Poppa's rifle."
The boy backed toward the door. "I'm leavin'. I ain't stayin' here. I run my knife through the last man's hand who tried to grab my—"
"No," Rebecca said. "It's not like that. No one here will hurt you. It will be morning in a few hours. There's no sense in you going back to... to wherever you live tonight."
The child glared at them. "I want my money. You try and cheat me out of what you promised, I tell the landlady you got a whore in her house."
"I'll pay you," Shaw assured him. He took a pillow and a blanket from the bed. "Here. You can sleep on the floor. You might have a chance to earn something more tomorrow."
Dewey looked skeptical. "I get to eat in the mornin'?"
Rebecca nodded. "As much as you want."
"You crazy, being here with Shaw?" Eve asked. "Not that I'm not grateful, but one whore in the family—"
"Don't say that," Rebecca snapped. "Shaw and I are married. Legally man and wife."
"Married?" Eve shook her head. "If Poppa don't shoot him the MacCades will."
"Maybe I'm not so easy to kill as Laird," Shaw said. "Now tell us about Jamie. Why did those people take him? How long ago? Why? And where is he?"
Eve swore and scratched her head. "That dog shit, Deacon Penny! It was all his doing. He beat one of Thelma's girls, Rose, so bad that she couldn't work for a week, so Thelma wouldn't let him in the door. When Penny threatened to cause trouble for the house, Thelma said she'd make sure his wife found out what he did every Tuesday and Friday night when he was supposed to be at choir practice."
"Hell, they just come in the middle of the night, roused everybody out of bed, snatched Jamie and Betty's girl, Samantha, and set fire to the place," Dewey said. "They tried to catch me, but I heaved a brick at 'em."
"Penny said a whorehouse was no place for children to be raised," Eve continued. "Said they would place the kids with decent families. Snatched Jamie right out of my arms, they did."
"But you didn't go to the authorities?" Rebecca asked. "Complain to—"
"Who? The law? Accuse Edward Penny of kidnapping?" Eve swore foully. "Besides, Penny threatened worse would happen if we said anything."
"You crazy, lady?" Dewey asked. "Whores goin' to the law?" He scoffed. "They'd have thrown 'em in jail."
"Do you know where he took Jamie?" Shaw asked.
Shaw's tone was low and controlled. But it didn't take more than a quick glance at his grim expression for Rebecca to guess what he was thinking. Jamie was a MacCade—Laird's son, and Shaw's nephew. Shaw would take this personally.
"Thelma's house burned to the ground with everything we owned in it," Eve said, "and the firefighters didn't even come. Assholes."
Rebecca frowned. "Stop that cussing."
"That was two, maybe three months ago. I got sick with the cholera after that, and—" Eve scratched her head again. "I want Jamie back, Becca. He's all I've got. No matter what I am, he's still mine. They've got no right taking him. You've got to help me."
"We'll get him back, Eve," Shaw said quietly. "First thing in the morning, I'll pay a call on Edward Penny. That's a promise."
"Will you?" she begged. "Or is it more empty promises from a MacCade?"
"Enough of that talk," Rebecca said. "If Shaw says he'll find Jamie, he will." She threw him a grateful look. "Shaw—Lord, Evie! You don't have—" Her face wrinkled in disgust. "You've something crawling in your..." Rebecca parted her sister's hair. "You've got bugs."
"Yes, damn it, I've got lice," Eve replied. "Who doesn't in that cursed camp where I've been livin' since the do-gooders burned Thelma's place? The kid's got them." She waved in Dewey's direction. "It's a wonder he's not eaten up with them. You can smell him a mile away."
Rebecca's shoulders slumped, and she gave Shaw a meaning-ful look. "Run the tub, Mr. MacCade. My sister's not sleeping in my bed until she's washed clean as a newborn babe."
Dewey laughed. "Eve's lousy. Eve's gotta be scrubbed white like a angel."
Shaw collared the boy before he could get to his feet. "Keep laughin', brat," he said. "Because you're first."
"No, you ain't makin' no dandy outta me. I ain't takin' my duds off in front of no strange women." He lashed out with a bare foot and kicked Shaw in the leg. "I ain't goin' in no tub."
* * *
The first rays of rosy dawn splashed through the tall windows and seeped across the floor to the poster bed where Eve and Dewey lay sleeping side by side, bare as eggs, sheets pulled to their necks. They were naked because both the woman's and the boy's garments were a total loss, too full of holes and infested with vermin to salvage.
Rebecca lay stretched on the chaise longue with Shaw beside her on the floor. She was onl
y half awake; he had yet to shut his eyes. She squeezed his hand. "Will you find Jamie? Can you?"
"I'll find him," he assured her.
"I hope so. Poor baby. He must be terrified."
"If he's still alive, I'll get him back." He kept thinking about Laird and about Laird's son, the boy he hadn't given much thought to except to deny he was the father. For some reason Shaw couldn't fathom, he felt a sense of shame. And beneath that was the knowledge that now there was a better reason for a Raeburn to kill Laird. If Eve believed one of hers had done the shooting, it must be so.
A dull ache gnawed at Shaw's gut. He'd sworn to take revenge for his brother. And if the guilty man was someone that Becca held dear, what then? He loved her with all his heart and soul. But he was a MacCade—blood, bone, and grit. He'd made a vow to his dead brother, and he'd have to keep it. If he found out for certain who pulled the trigger, he'd have to kill the son of a bitch. And that would break Becca's heart and destroy any chance they had of making a life together.
"It's hard to believe that anyone could be so cruel, to separate a child from his mother," she said. "What if Jamie isn't here in Saint Louis? What if they've sent him east?"
"I said I'll find him," Shaw repeated. "I might be harder to deal with than a few frightened women."
Becca sat up. "I'm so tired my eyes are burning. I can't believe we spent the rest of the night cleaning those two up," she grumbled.
Next to the table, on the floor, lay hanks and wads of the child's dark, matted hair. As Eve had predicted, Dewey's head was in such a state that the only sensible way to sanitize him had been to clip his hair close to his head. Rebecca had tried that. But the chopped results had been so awful that having Shaw shave it was the lad's only hope.
"My honeymoon with my wife, and my bed is full of strangers," Shaw muttered.
"Eve isn't a stranger," Becca murmured. "She's my sister." She sighed. "One of us will have to go and buy them clothing."
"And the other one will have to guard Dewey to keep him from running off bare assed," he replied.
Becca chuckled. "I doubt that. If we plan on serving breakfast, I don't think we can get rid of him until he eats his weight in eggs and bacon."
"Or until he gets paid," Shaw answered. "Foul mouthed little badger." He shook his head. "Where they were livin', near the river, it was bad, real bad. It's a wonder either one of them has survived so long in that hellhole."
"How does he live?" She didn't want to ask how Eve got the money to buy food. She could guess, and the answer wasn't one she wanted spoken aloud.
"My guess is that Dewey's a thief. He probably rolls drunks, runs errands for whores and gamblers, eats where he can."
"We should do something for him, Shaw. Surely, there must be homes for orphans. From his table manners and the way he talks, I don't think he's ever been to school. And if those feet have worn shoes, it was a long time ago."
"Told you, woman. He's not a boy. He's a prairie badger."
"Shaw..."
"All right, I'll think of something to do with him. But first I've got to deal with Penny."
"And if he won't tell you where Jamie is? If he's as bad as Eve says, he may be reluctant to—"
"Penny will tell me where Jamie MacCade is if he wants to keep his scalp."
Becca's face paled in the lamplight. "If you find him, we've got to do something for them, too. We can't leave Eve and Jamie here in Saint Louis."
Shaw put his arms around her, pulled her close, and kissed the crown of her head. "Leave it to me, darlin'. I'll make this right. Ma will want Jamie, and she'll offer your sister a home to have her grandson. Ma's house may not be up to Raeburn standards, but it's a hell of a lot better than where I found Eve last night."
"You think she'd do that? Take Eve... after what's happened to her? After she..." Rebecca couldn't make her lips form around the word whore. Not when it described her sister. She wondered if she'd ever use that word again, or if she'd ever be as judgmental as she'd been before she'd come to Saint Louis. "...After she did what she did to keep her and Jamie alive?" she finished.
Shaw pushed her far enough away to tap her chin gently with a knuckle. "I've done enough things I'm ashamed of in the past. It's not for me to throw stones."
"Or me," Rebecca said softly.
"There's no reason anybody should know what happened here. The boy is my brother's, and she was as good as his wife. That's all that matters. And I can tell you that that's all that will count with my mother."
"Your mother, maybe, but what about your father? He hates Raeburns worse than poison. Would Eve be safe in his house?"
Shaw chuckled. "Ever see a mama wolf defending her pups? If Ma wants Eve and Jamie, what Pap wants won't matter."
* * *
At nine o'clock, Shaw and Rebecca, suitably dressed, were ushered into Edward Penny's office on the second floor of Penny's Ship's Store and introduced to the businessman as Mr. and Mrs. Peregrine Carr of Jefferson City.
Penny, a mild-looking, rotund man in half spectacles, stood to greet them. "Come in, come in," he said graciously. "One of Talbot Carr's sons, are you? Fine man, your father, good customer. And how's your father's uncle, Senator Madison?" He waved them to chairs just beyond his oaken desk. "Would you care for coffee, perhaps tea for Mrs. Carr?"
Rebecca took a seat. Shaw pushed the door closed. "Actually," she said. "This is rather a personal matter."
Penny's professional smile vanished. "How so?"
"We've come to inquire about a child."
"I'm sorry. This isn't the proper place. I never take applications for our children at my place of business."
Rebecca frowned. "But I assumed—"
"I'll be happy to put your name on the list, if you'd care to leave a donation today, but..." Penny forced what passed as a laugh. "We happen to be very short on orphans at the moment. Did you want a boy or a girl?" When neither of them answered, he went on. "Baby or child old enough to help around the house? Pity I didn't know you were in the market for—"
"You misunderstand," Rebecca said. "We're looking for a particular child, a three-year-old boy that you took from his mother the night you helped burn Thelma Brown's house on High Street."
Penny's small eyes narrowed, and shaggy gray brows came together as his face turned an angry purple. "Get out of this office!" he demanded. "How dare you come here and accuse me—" His stride toward the door was cut short as Shaw seized him by the collar and slammed him up against the wall.
Rebecca rose and turned the key in the lock.
Penny opened his mouth to scream, but found himself looking at the blade of a very large, very sharp bowie knife—a knife poised inches from his nose. Penny's would-be call for help became a gasp and then gape-mouthed silence.
"Very good," Rebecca said. "We understand each other, Mr. Penny. My husband has a very short fuse, very short indeed. The boy is his son." She sighed and spread her hands palm up in a hopeless gesture. "Jamie's birth was somewhat... irregular. But, nevertheless, he is my husband's son, and we've come to claim him."
"You... you... you... can't. Gone. Beyond... my control. Unfortunate—"
Shaw placed the tip of the knife against Penny's Adam's apple.
"Dear me," Rebecca fussed. "You've made Peregrine angry. Please don't do that. Since the mule kicked him, he loses his temper so easily. And the last time that happened..." She took a lace handkerchief from her purse and touched her lips. "Dear me, no. We cannot have another incident like that one. Father Carr was so disturbed, and the mess... You can't imagine, Mr. Penny, how much blood—"
"I don't know where the boy is," he wailed. Shaw turned his head and winked at Rebecca. "Now can I kill him?" he asked in a methodical, wooden tone.
"The whole lot went with a wagon train," Penny whispered hoarsely. "Headed for California. Oregon. Somewhere west."
"Good," Rebecca replied. "Now, we're getting somewhere. Not yet, Peregrine. Mr. Penny is trying to recall the names of the gentlemen who have Jami
e. Aren't you, sir?"
"I don't know who has the boy. I swear I don't. They passed through here in June, headed for Independence. A train of twenty, maybe twenty-five families."
"The names, sir," Rebecca persisted. "We must have names if we're to locate Peregrine's child."
"They were good people, well supplied for the trip. Plenty of draft animals," the merchant babbled. "I had no idea that the... the lad belonged to—"
"Now?" Shaw asked in the same deep, mechanical voice. "Yoder! The wagon captain was Daniel Yoder," Penny blurted out. "I don't remember the names of the others. But Yoder said they were going to settle near Oregon City. I remember because I told him that it was late in the year to start out for Oregon." He began to shake. "Don't kill me. Please don't kill me. I'll give you the hundred-dollar donation I got for the boy. I'll give you—"
"I should let him slit your throat, you pig," Rebecca flung back. "You steal children and sell them for a hundred dollars?"
"I do not sell children! I accept donations for the foundation. We search out and care for the offspring of fallen women. Can't you see that children are better off raised by—"
"Go ahead, dear. Finish him off," Rebecca said calmly. "Please," Penny mumbled. "Anything you want. Don't hurt me. I'm a father myself. I've got four—"
"Is there a back stairs?" she asked him.
"Yes, yes," the businessman said, "Through that door. It leads to—"
"Tie him up, Peregrine. No, we aren't going to kill you now, Mr. Penny. But if you've lied to us, if any harm has come to the child, I promise you we will be back. And next time..." She shook her head sadly. "Next time, I'll let Peregrine carve you into tiny chunks and throw you into the river for fish bait. Do you understand?"
"Yes. Yes. Yes." Penny's head bobbed up and down like a cork on a string.
"No more kidnapping of children," Rebecca said firmly. "If we hear the slightest hint of a repeat of this, I won't be responsible." She folded her arms over her breasts and glared at him while Shaw tied his feet and ankles, then she stuffed the handkerchief into his mouth. "Shhh," she warned. "We'll wait outside for a few minutes to be certain you understand all our instructions." She patted Penny's bald head, a surface now beaded with sweat. "And one thing I'll tell you for free. There's a price on your head on High Street. So if I were you, I wouldn't stray from my wife's bed at night anytime soon, sir. It would be a pity to make her a widow so young, wouldn't it?"
The Taming of Shaw MacCade Page 23
