The Lawless Read online

  “Then that settles it.” Kate wrapped her knuckles on the table. “Ivy, Shannon, you’re going with Mose.” She smiled. “It’s the beginning of a great adventure.”

  Ivy was eleven, old enough to know what was happening. “We want to stay with you, Ma. We can help you.”

  “Attend to your mother, young ladies,” Cobb said, doing his best, and failing, to make his voice stern.

  “It’s all right, Frank. I understand how Ivy feels. I would have felt the same at her age.” Kate drew her daughters closer to her chair and kissed them both. “The best way you can help is to go with Mose. He’ll need you to take care of him.”

  “That’s right, Miz Kerrigan, I sure will.” Moses nodded his grizzled head.

  “Ma, suppose you die?” Shannon asked carefully. “I don’t want my ma to die.”

  “I won’t die. We’ll all be together again real soon. You’ll see.”

  “Moses, Kate packed up some grub, and I’ve saddled the horses,” Cobb said. “Best you head out before dark.”

  “Ma, please . . .” Ivy said, tears in her eyes.

  Kate smiled back her own tears. “It will be only for a few days and then I’ll come for you. Now, go with Mose, and be polite to him like I taught you.”

  “Ma”—Shannon hesitated—“you’ll come for us?”

  Still holding back tears, Kate nodded. It was a long time before she managed to say, “You know I will.”

  All walked slowly outside, Ivy and Shannon clinging to their mother.

  The girls mounted their horses, then reached across the distance to hold hands.

  Cobb, his face grim, stood beside Moses’ paint and said in a whisper, “Mose, we’re up against some mighty rough men, men without a conscience. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  Moses nodded. “Got me my Dragoon, Mr. Cobb.”

  “I’m sorry, Mose, but it had to be said.”

  “I know it had. And I’ll pray that it don’t never come to that.”

  Moses Rice and the girls rode out under an amber sky. Only when they were out of sight did Kate lay her head on Cobb’s chest and let the tears come.

  “We’ll defend only the cabin,” Cobb said. “Trace, you and Quinn will take up positions at the front and rear windows. Your mother is a good rifle shot. She’ll fight and there’s no use trying to talk her out of it.”

  “What about Doc Fullerton?” Trace asked.

  “She’ll be in the cabin with Marco Salas’s wife and children. God help you, it’s going to be cramped in there.”

  Quinn asked, “What about Marco and the Count?”

  “They’ve volunteered to acts as pickets and keep watch. At the first sign of trouble, they’ll fall back and join you in the cabin.”

  “And you, Frank?” Trace questioned.

  “I can fight better off a horse.”

  Trace didn’t question that. Frank was a mounted pistol fighter in the Texas guerrilla style, and his revolver skills would be wasted in the close confines of the cabin.

  Cobb looked around the table. “Any questions?”

  Trace shook his head. “I guess not. You, Quinn?”

  The boy nodded. “Only one. The cabin’s timbers are bone dry and it would catch fire real easy. What if they torch it?”

  “Then you all get out of there in a hurry and take up a position in the blacksmith’s shop,” Cobb directed. “God willing, I’ll be there to help you.”

  “It’s pretty bleak, Frank,” Trace said.

  Cobb nodded. “That’s the word for it, all right. Bleak.”

  Trace thought of another question. “How many men does Savannah St. James have?”

  “If she’s been hiring guns, she’ll have plenty,” Cobb said.

  “All the more for us to shoot,” Quinn pointed out.

  Cobb grinned. “You’ll do, Quinn. You’ll do.”

  Kate Kerrigan walked up the rise behind the cabin to the cemetery. She stood beside the fresh grave of the boy Count Andropov had killed and said a rosary for his immortal soul.

  By the time she was finished, the day had begun to shade into evening. As far as her eyes could reach, she could see the healthy longhorns and the white faces of the Herefords grazing on her broad acres. Indeed, it was a land worth fighting for, the Kerrigan Ranch, her present and her future and her family’s future.

  Lithe and beautiful as an Irish warrior queen, Kate walked down the darkening hill. Lamps were lit in the cabin and she smelled the tang of baking bread and roasting meat.

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  The light was fading, coyotes yipped, and Hack Rivette steeled himself to take his shot. If he was to be the bull of the woods and own Savannah St. James and all she represented, it was time to get rid of Jack Hickam. Rivette stood in shadow near the horse lines and watched the gunman move back and forth in front of the fire. He had already spent an hour or more inside the Emperor Maximilian and that rankled. Hickam was getting what Rivette wanted and that had to stop.

  He stepped out of the shadows and walked toward the tents where the fire burned and bacon and beans cooked in a sooty pot. Hickam had his back turned and stared into the fire, a cigar in his teeth. Rivette drew his gun and held it down by his leg. His mouth was dry and fear fiddled a tune in his belly. Suppose his revolver misfired? Suppose his target turned at the last moment and drew? He forced those doubts out of his head.

  Jack Hickam was already a dead man. He just didn’t know it yet.

  Moving quietly for such a big man, Rivette moved closer . . . ten yards . . . five . . . he slowed his pace . . . spitting distance. Now!

  He raised his Colt and fired a shot into Hickam’s back and then he almost screamed. Hickam didn’t drop!

  Jack Hickam was among the best of the best. As sudden as a striking cobra, he drew and fired.

  Rivette took the ball in the center of his chest and knew he was a dead man. Both men dropped to their knees swaying, but facing each other. Rivette tried a shot and scored a hit. Hickam, roaring his outrage, absorbed the ball and fired twice. He hit Rivette in the chest a second time and his third shot took the big man smack between the eyes.

  He toppled over on his side and lay still. Hickam, snarling like a wolf, emptied his gun into him. The last thing Jack saw in this life was Savannah walking toward him. She didn’t look sad. Just angry as hell.

  “What happened?” she asked the three guns who were staring slack-jawed at the dead men.

  No one said anything for a moment.

  Finally one of them, built like a rain barrel, said quietly, “The new man walked up and shot Jack in the back. Then Jack turned and done for him.”

  “Are they both dead?” Savannah asked.

  “As they’re ever gonna be, ma’am,” Rain Barrel said.

  “Damn. That means you boys will need to haul extra freight.”

  A towhead said, “This is a bad luck outfit, lady. I’m outta here.”

  As the other two muttered agreement, Savannah put her hands on her generous hips and said, “What will it take to keep you boys here? Just name it.”

  Rain Barrel shook his head. “Ma’am, what you got we all want, but the price is too high.”

  Savannah looked at them coldly. “You damn scum. You signed on to stay until the job is over. Well, it isn’t over until my herd is in Kansas.”

  “It’s over,” the towhead said, his eyes glittering in the firelight. “But you owe me and I’m gonna claim my due.”

  Rain Barrel grinned. “And that goes fer me as well.”

  The men advanced on her, naked desire in their eyes.

  Savannah drew her derringer and shot Rain Barrel in the face. The squat man screamed and fell. The other two hesitated for just a moment and that was their death.

  Two rifle shots rang out and both men were hit. The towhead fell immediately, but the second staggered a few steps, then pitched forward, his face in the fire.

  Marmaduke Tweng walked out of the gloom, a Henry. 44-40 fitted with a strange brass and copper
sight as long as the rifle itself.

  Savannah took a deep breath. “Thank you, Mr. Tweng.”

  “Some things I just can’t let happen, Miss St. James. The violation of a woman is one of them.” After a moment’s hesitation, he asked, “What will you do now?”

  She frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “Will you hire more men?”

  “With what? My money is all gone.”

  “Can I take you somewhere?” Tweng offered.

  “Of course you can. We attack the Kerrigan Ranch in the morning just as I planned.”

  Tweng frowned. “You mean using only the Emperor Maximilian?”

  “You told me it is a weapon of war.” Behind her a circle of firelight pooled scarlet in the darkness.

  “It can be used as such.” Tweng nodded .

  “I want the Kerrigan Ranch destroyed and every living thing dead, Mr. Tweng, especially Kate. Can you do that?”

  “As an engineer, I’m anxious to discover if an armored vehicle can be used in war,” Tweng answered. “Of course, I’ll be killing people, but it’s all in the cause of advancing science. Yes, by the Lord Harry, I’ll do it.”

  “I want them all dead, Mr. Tweng. I mean every last one of them, adults and their spawn. Crushed, pounded, pulverized to death. I want to watch Kate Kerrigan’s blood and guts spurt from under the wheels.”

  Tweng nodded. “Yes, yes, I believe the Emperor has that capability. As always, steam will see us through.”

  Savannah’s smile was slow, seductive. “To seal our bargain, may I do something nice for you, Mr. Tweng?”

  “Alas, dear lady, as much as I admire them for their intelligence and wit I am not drawn to the charms of womankind. I much prefer mankind, if you understand my meaning.”

  “You’re a queer little man, Mr. Tweng.”

  “No, Miss St. James. I am a steam engineer.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  Kate Kerrigan could not sleep. Frank Cobb’s plan for the defense of her ranch kept playing over and over in her head. To fight expert gunmen from the confines of a cabin that could be burned to the ground in minutes was a recipe for disaster.

  She rose quietly and threw her cloak over her night attire. She took the Henry from the rack on the wall and stepped outside. All was quiet and a horned moon rode high in the sky. The menfolk were asleep in the blacksmith’s shop except for Count Andropov, who always bedded down in his rickety general store.

  Kate walked away from the ranch buildings and moved west onto the flat grassland. Coyotes, attracted by a fresh grave, prowled the cemetery on the rise and yipped their eternal hunger.

  Driven by the will to survive, she walked a mile into the prairie and then stopped, her rifle by her side. Here, on this ground, was where the Kerrigan Ranch would make its fight.

  Trace and Quinn were good rifle shots, as was Count Andropov. And so was she. Frank would stay mounted, as was his training and inclination. Kate stared into the shrouded darkness. Even at the charge, Savannah St. James’s mounted gunmen would be out in the open and they could be stopped by accurate rifle fire. It all depended on . . .

  Ahead of her, the clouds parted and a lone horseman walked his horse into sight. Kate racked a round into the Henry, a sharp, mechanical sound that carried far.

  The rider stopped and sat his saddle in silence.

  “I can drop you from here,” Kate called. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph her voice sounded too high, as though she was frightened—which she was.

  The man in the distance laughed. “Who else in West Texas would have an accent as Irish as the pigs o’ Docherty?”

  Kate thought she recognized the voice. “Who are you?” she called, her words echoing.

  “Well, I could be President Ulysses S. Grant, but I’m not. You know me, Mrs. Kerrigan. I’m Henry Brown, late in the employ of the deceased Mr. Jason Hunt.”

  Kate felt her heart leap, but she remained cautious. “Ride closer and let me take a look at you.”

  The horseman rode forward.

  She recognized him and let her rifle fall to her side. “It’s delightful to see you again, Mr. Brown. Where have you been?”

  “Here and there. I’m riding the owlhoot, but what brings you out onto the big grass in the middle of the night?”

  Kate ignored that and asked her own question. “Mr. Brown, did you see any sight of armed men?”

  “Sure didn’t. But in the distance I saw lights in the windows of what looked like a railroad car. Heard it too. Somebody build a railroad since I was last here?”

  “No. It’s not a railroad. I have some things to tell you, Mr. Brown.”

  He stepped out of the saddle, walked his horse forward, and smiled. “Tell away, Mrs. Kerrigan.”

  Using as few words as possible, Kate told of the events leading up to the impending attack on the Kerrigan Ranch. “I couldn’t sleep and came out here to study the ground.”

  Brown nodded. “I agree with you that this is the best place to make our fight.”

  “Our fight, Mr. Brown?”

  “I told you I’d come back when you needed me. I’m many things, Mrs. Kerrigan, not all of them honorable, but I do keep my word.”

  “I’m so glad you’ll be with us, Mr. Brown. I think we’re going into a fight badly outnumbered. And Savannah has that strange machine I told you about.”

  “Then we’ll just have to even the odds. Now let me get you back to the cabin so you can get some rest.” He looked at the star-scattered sky. “We’ll be back here before sunup.”

  “You think they’ll attack in the morning?” Kate asked.

  “Judging by the noise that steam carriage was making, that would be my guess. If not tomorrow, then the day after.” He walked Kate to her cabin and then went to the cluttered blacksmith’s shop in search of Frank Cobb.

  He found him in his blankets, his head wedged between the feet of the anvil. Brown shook Cobb awake, and for his trouble got the cold muzzle of the man’s Colt jammed between his eyes.

  “Don’t shoot. It’s me, Henry Brown.”

  Cobb swore. “I could’ve blowed your damn fool head off, Brown.”

  “We need to talk.”

  “What time is it?”

  “Midnight. Thereabouts.”

  “You don’t wake up a Christian white man at midnight or thereabouts,” Cobb griped.

  Brown grinned. “I do it all the time.”

  “Then it’s a wonder you’re still alive.” Still grumbling, Cobb rose to his feet and followed him outside and a distance from the forge. “Well, what’s so all-fired important? Make it good, Henry, because I’m seriously considering putting a ball into you.”

  “Frank, I met Mrs. Kerrigan tonight.”

  Suddenly, Cobb was wide-awake. “Met her where?”

  “Out on the grass. She plans to make our stand there.”

  “Our stand? Are you planning to stay around this time?”

  Brown grinned. “I sure am. I like Mrs. Kerrigan and you, too, Frank, since you’re such an affable feller.”

  “My plan is to defend the cabin,” Cobb argued.

  “I know. She told me. She thinks it’s a lousy plan and so do I. You’ll be trapped like rats in the cabin. But out on the flat we can pick off the bad men before they even get close.”

  “They come in a rush and they’ll come fast,” Cobb pointed out.

  “So? We’ll just need to shoot fast is all.”

  Cobb shook his head. “Kate is the boss. She does as she pleases.”

  “And this time she happens to be right. What about the machine Savannah St. James has?”

  “It’s a steam carriage. We’ve nothing to fear from that. She and her hired guns will come mounted.”

  Brown shook his head. “We got a fight on our hands, Frank. Damn, I’m looking forward to it.”

  “That’s because you’re a crazy man, even crazier than Wes Hardin. I’m going back to my blankets.”

  “Mrs. Kerrigan wants us out on the flat before sunup. I hope I
see you there.”

  “Brown, when the fight starts your horse’s nose will be up my horse’s ass.”

  “That’s my brave boy,” Brown said, grinning.

  Frank Cobb badly wanted to shoot him.

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  Savannah St. James rang for her maid, who appeared in her nightgown, her hair in curling ribbons and her dark face shining with night cream. “I’m sorry to call you so late, Leah. You must think me most inconsiderate.”

  “Not at all, Miss St. James,” the maid said. “It is no trouble.”

  “Please sit, Leah.” Savannah motioned to the sofa.

  The woman sat on the edge.

  “How long have you been with me, Leah?”

  “Fifteen years, Miss St. James. Ever since you were a lovely young thing living in London town.”

  “You’ve been a good and faithful servant, Leah.”

  “Thank you.” The woman looked puzzled.

  “You know I attack the Kerrigan woman and her vile clan tomorrow morning, don’t you?” Savannah asked.

  “Yes, ma’am. And a wicked, wicked woman she is, murdering poor Mr. St. James like that.”

  “Indeed she is. Leah, I asked you here because I want to give you this.” She pulled a bloodred ruby ring from her finger. “It’s the only thing of value I have left.”

  Leah looked stricken. “Miss St. James, are you dismissing me?”

  “Yes I am, Leah. All my money is gone and I can no longer pay you.” Savannah laid her derringer on the table beside her. “When this is over and I watch Mrs. Kerrigan die, I will use that weapon to take my own life.”

  “But why, Miss St. James?” Leah couldn’t understand. “You will have the herds.”

  Savannah smiled. “Ah, yes, the herds. But I have no money to pay cowboys to see cattle through the winter and round them up come spring. No money to drive them north.” Savannah smiled. “I very much doubt that I have enough pennies in my purse to see myself through winter. I’d probably starve to death. I rolled the dice, you see, and I lost.”

  “Your brother could have saved us,” Leah said loyally.