Beneath The Texas Sky (29 page)

She knew there was little she could do for a bullet to the stomach. There was little anyone could do. All the times this man had saved her life came flooding into her mind. For almost twenty years he’d been there as a strong wall against harm’s way.

Mayson’s black boots appeared at her side. “Sorry about your hired hand, ma’am, but we’re in search of a man who killed my son. You left town with him a few hours ago, so where is he?”

“He’s not here,” Bethanie answered as she pulled a bandage from her medicine bag.

Mayson turned and gave orders for everyone to search the area. A few minutes later when Bethanie raised her head, only Mayson, Smith, the sheriff, and a large man dressed in a heavy fur-lined coat remained in the room.

Smith patted his gun handle. “Whata we goin’ ta do about this man, Mr. Mayson?”

Bethanie turned in anger. Her voice was low and cold as ice. “I’ll see you’re tried for murder if he dies, so you had better pray he lives.”

The sheriff shook his head. “He ain’t going to live. He’s gut shot, lady. He’ll be dead before we could get him on a horse.”

Smith began sweating like a wool-clad pig in summer. “I’m not gonna go to jail for killing nobody. It were just an accident, like this morning.

Bethanie sensed the deputy had said more than he meant to and faced the whining fool. “What accident this morning?”

The deputy darted a hesitant glance at Mayson. Smith was mindless with fright at his slip of the tongue. “I didn’t know Elliot Mayson would be wearin’ Dusty’s slicker. It was raining, and Dusty and Elliot looked the same from a distance.”

“Shut up, you fool!” the sheriff yelled as he slammed his rifle butt into the deputy’s face.

The sound of cracking teeth ground with the deputy’s high-pitched whimper.

Bethanie looked toward Mayson and saw no surprise in his face. The deputy’s confession was no revelation to this cold, power-hungry man. He wanted Dusty dead. She knew without asking that he’d ordered Dusty shot this morning. When that hadn’t worked out, the next plan must have been to blame Elliot’s shooting on Dusty. Either way, Dusty was a dead man and Mayson moved in on the Weston Ranch.

Mayson looked down at her with eyes incapable of anything other than greed. “The question appears to be, Mrs. Weston, now what do we do with you? You know too much ever to be allowed to leave this cabin.”

The dark form wearing a heavy coat moved into the circle of light from the fireplace. Bethanie caught her breath in her throat as she recognized the aging face of her uncle. His features were twisted now, reflecting the evil life he had lived. His skin was pale, almost transparent with poor health. A cancer sore crawled up his neck and onto his face like a weed growing just under the skin. He had the look of a man who walked only one step ahead of death and who was tiring from the
constant effort. Even though the room was warm, he hugged his coat as if his body could no longer hold any heat.

“Bethanie.” Wilbur’s voice was raspy. “I’ve waited a long time to see you again.” His watery eyes traveled over her, tickling her flesh like a hundred tiny spiders.

Bethanie was no longer the child who cowered at his lusting stares. “Wilbur,” she answered. “Hell must have spit you out from the looks of you. Not even the devil could stand the stench of your evil soul.”

Wilbur laughed. “I’ll live long enough to see you dead, my girl. You see, you have no Weston men around to protect you. They were fools anyway. Even when I told them you were a worthless bastard child, they both took turns marrying you. Tell me, my little niece, did they take turns bedding you also?” His laughter was cruel. “I thought you might have enough passion for the cripple, but never for the younger man. Did he leave you, and that’s why you came crawling back to Texas?”

Bethanie stood and straightened her shoulders. “You are the reason I came back to Texas,” she answered. “I have heard you know of my father.”

Wilbur laughed again and moved closer. “I haven’t heard from him in twenty years. He’s dead by now, no doubt of some disease your whoring mother gave him.”

As Wilbur grabbed for Bethanie, a shot rang out through the cabin. Wilbur jerked backward in pain. Blood seemed to explode across his chest. He pulled at his coat as if for protection from the pain. Life passed from his eyes even before his body hit the floor. His large form jerked once in reflex action before flattening into a pool of his own blood.

Bethanie pulled her gaze away from Wilbur’s body and looked behind her. Cain lowered the rifle back beside him where Bethanie had placed it.

Cain’s words were a whisper, but they resounded off
the walls of Bethanie’s mind. “No man talks of Mary like that…and lives.”

The way he said her mother’s name was like a prayer on his lips. The pieces of her life’s puzzle began to fall into place around her. Tears clouded her eyes, and she moved to cradle his head in her lap. “You knew my mother,” she whispered, her tears raining on his face. She didn’t care that Wilbur died without telling her about her father. Her heart had reasoned out the answer the moment Cain spoke her mother’s name.

“I knew her…loved her,” Cain answered. “One night men came to burn us out. I stood before them without a gun. They couldn’t kill me so they burned a torch into my face…threw me into the river for dead.” He gulped, fighting to make the words come out above his pain. “I lay near death for months miles downriver. When I could walk, I thought she would never want to see me again. I tried…to run from this face and the pain I had caused her, but I could never run far enough. When I came back it was too late, she had taken you and moved. I followed, but always too late…till Texas.”

Bethanie held Cain to her. Even through her tears she could see the life slowly leaving his body. “Why?” she cried. “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

Cain raised his huge hand to her face. “I had to…earn your love,” he whispered. “A man never had a finer daughter. Every time I watched you care for the sick or sing an old Shaker song to your children, I was a little nearer to my Mary. I could have asked for no greater life.”

“Father,” Bethanie cried as she cradled his head in her arms. A loud thud sounded at the door, as if a log had been wedged to keep it closed. She looked up to find Mayson and Smith gone. She smelled kerosene, and in an instant knew what was happening. “Father!” she cried again. “They’re burning the cabin.”

Cain’s face was pale. He barely had the energy to open his eyes. “Run, Bethanie. You must…back window. Run!”

“No!” Bethanie cried as his dying breath blended with the words in the nightmare that had haunted her all her life.

A torch flashed like a flaming comet, then hit the porch. Another followed in repetition. The old wood caught fire like straw. Bethanie clutched Cain’s head to her like a frightened child. His hand fell lifeless to the floor. She knew he was dead, but she couldn’t let go. She’d wanted her father all her life, and now she learned he’d always been at her side. There were so many things she wanted to say to him, so many words that needed to be said, She wanted to be a little girl again and have both a mother and a father to love her. She wanted to tell him that her mother never stopped loving him all her life…as he’d never stopped loving Mary.

Flames licked the windows and the room grew bright as day, but still Bethanie would not let her father go.

The nightmare seemed clearer now. Her mind had refused to remember the night her father left, and her mother would never talk of it. Bethanie’s mind whirled with a thousand questions. Why had her mother never spoken of him? Why had Mary run from the house that night and not stayed with her husband if she loved him so much?

Bethanie heard crackling above her as the roof caught fire. The noise seemed to crystallize the answer in her mind. Her mother had run into the woods that night with Bethanie, for the same reason she had hid in the cave with Mariah.

For the same reason she must run tonight. For her children!

Bethanie kissed her father’s lifeless cheek farewell. She moved her hand along his scarred face and didn’t
feel the deformed skin. “Good-bye, Father,” she whispered.

Without looking back, Bethanie crawled across the floor to the back room that was little more than a shed built onto the one-room cabin. She pulled her coat over her hair as part of the roof fell.

Silently, Bethanie slid through the window and rolled onto the ground. The fire noisily gobbled up any sound she might have made. She scrambled to her feet and ran down the ravine toward the cottonwoods growing at the bottom.

Darkness engulfed her and she stumbled. Bethanie felt herself falling, falling into the blackness.

Mariah followed Dusty through the ravine for half a mile. The night was almost black with clouds bubbling like dark molasses across the sky. At times she had to follow him by the soft murmur of hooves in front of her. The cottonwood and elm trees reached for her in the darkness, trying to pull Mariah’s tired body from the horse.

Finally Dusty began to climb out of the muddy, wooded area. “We’ll be home in a few minutes,” he whispered back to her. “The man on the ridge has spotted us by now. He would have fired if it wasn’t safe to move in.”

Mariah nodded. All their problems kept rumbling through her mind. Right now nothing sounded better than “being home in a few minutes.” As soon as she spotted the tiny light of the Weston Ranch, Mariah broke into full gallop, with Dusty close behind her.

They reached the porch just as the door swung open and Josh Weston ran out, flanked by two sons already almost his height. Mariah bolted from her mount and flew into the arms of her family.

Laughing, Mariah turned toward Dusty. She didn’t miss his slightly raised eyebrow as he looked from one of the younger men to the other. “Dusty, I’d like you to meet two of my brothers, Mark and Luke.”

Dusty looked relieved and hurried forward with a handshake.

Mariah nestled under Josh’s open arm as her middle brothers introduced themselves to Dusty. They looked so much like Josh, she couldn’t believe Dusty wouldn’t have known who they were on sight. Matthew, the oldest, might be content to study and read, and John, the youngest, was always off doing his own thing; but she would have bet money that the two middle brothers, Mark and Luke, would be with Josh. The two were at that awkward age between boys and men, but they never lacked for adventure in their souls.

“How are you, Mariah?” Josh asked as he squeezed her shoulder. He was a handsome man with silver-gray sideburns and tanned smile lines around his mouth. She could hear the touch of worry in his tone as he searched the darkness for his wife.

“Mother is at the cabin on the north ridge.” Mariah watched as her words saddened his face. “With Cain,” she added, knowing her last words would ease his mind. Josh had been a wonderful father to her for as long as she could remember, but his thoughts were always with Bethanie.

Dusty pulled free from the boys and turned to face Josh. “It’s good to see you again,” he said simply as the two men shook hands.

Josh smiled. “It’s been a long time since you blackmailed me into taking you out of San Antonio, kid.”

Dusty pushed his hair to one side of his forehead. “Appears I’m in trouble again. When I left San Antonio, I had nothing to lose.” Dusty looked at Mariah, and Josh would’ve had to have been blind not to see the warmth in Dusty’s eyes. “I wish I had time to stay and visit, but I’ve got some hard riding to do tonight. Mariah can tell you the details while I go pack a saddlebag.”

“Ruth already told me what happened.” Josh touched
Dusty’s shoulder. “We’ll get this straightened out, but it may take a few days.”

“I’ll keep in touch.” Without another word, Dusty moved away from the house toward his place out back.

Josh leaned against the porch post as he stared out in the direction of the north cabin.

Mariah kissed Josh on the cheek. “I have to talk to Dusty.”

Josh nodded, only half listening, and Mariah slipped into the shadows to follow Dusty.

She caught up with him in the clearing by the waterfall. “Dusty, please don’t go.” Her cry was almost drowned out by the falling water.

Dusty turned to face her, but his features were in shadows. “I have to, Mariah.”

“Then let me go with you?”

“No.”

“But…” Frustration and anger boiled in her veins at the helplessness of the situation. He had done nothing wrong, yet he was being hunted like an animal. She wanted to strike out at the world, but instead suddenly began pounding on Dusty’s chest with her fists.

Dusty grabbed her wrists and pulled her close to him. She could feel his body through her clothes as he molded to her. “No argument, Mariah. Something tells me you’ve gotten everything you’ve ever asked for, but not this time.”

“I’m not spoiled. You see only the part of me you want to see.”

“Like hell you’re not. I remember when you were two, you already had everyone wrapped around your finger, including me.”

Mariah knew part of what he said was true. She’d had an easy life, surrounded by people who loved her. Maybe as a doctor, she could pay everyone back for the kindness she’d known all her life.

“Let’s not argue, Dusty. This mess will be cleared
up in a few days, and I don’t want to be sorry for what I said to you in anger.” Mariah ran her fingers into his hair and pulled his face down close to hers. “I don’t want you to go without saying one thing to you.” Her lips were almost touching his mouth.

“Don’t say anything, Mariah.” Dusty could stand the nearness of her no longer. He lowered his lips to Mariah’s and kissed her with all the tenderness in his soul.

When he was able to, he whispered against her moist, trembling lips. “Say no words of anger or of love, Mariah. It would make it harder for me to leave. Only let me hold you one more time and dream as I have since the moment I saw you that you are mine.”

Mariah pulled his mouth to her lips and kissed him again. She loved him and would all her life. Her actions would tell him, if her words could not. There was no holding back with this man, in anger or in love.

Neither reacted for a moment after they heard Josh shout. His cry seemed unreal in the damp night air. Dusty jumped first, pulling Mariah toward the house before she realized what was happening.

“Fire at the north cabin!” Josh shouted as Dusty came around the corner of the house.

“Mother!” Mariah screamed.

Josh’s features tightened. “Luke! Saddle the horses fast. Mark! Roust the men out of the bunkhouse. Mariah! Bring blankets in case anyone’s hurt.”

Dusty ran to his horse with Josh only a step behind him. Josh grabbed Dusty’s shoulder just before he mounted. “Dusty, everyone within thirty miles will see the fire…including the posse.”

“I don’t care.” Dusty jerked free of Josh’s hold. “I’ve got to go.”

Josh nodded and mounted the horse Mariah had ridden earlier. Both men were at full gallop within seconds.
They had disappeared into the darkness before Mariah and her brothers had time to carry out Josh’s orders.

Mariah rode toward the burning cabin with dread welling in her heart. Her mother or Cain might be in the fire! Dusty might be caught! Her father and brothers were riding toward unknown danger! And why? For what? Had she somehow brought all this on, or had it been simmering for the past twenty years and finally tonight the kettle was boiling over?

Mariah saw Josh and Dusty’s horses, but no others. If the posse had been at the cabin, there was no sign of them now. She slowed her horse to a walk as the smoldering hull of the cabin came into view. Smoke thickened the air, burning her eyes and lungs, but still she edged nearer. The tiny cabin was now a gray skeleton of slowburning logs. Most of the roof still stood, crackling against the low clouds as it continued to burn. Mariah squinted and made out the shadowy forms of two men standing within the flickering boundaries of the cabin. They were dragging something out into the clearing. Something that was smoking like a live coal and filling the air with the sickening smell of burning flesh. Mariah had helped her mother nurse burn victims and knew the smell the instant it reached her. The horrible odor of charred bodies.

Josh and Dusty dropped the huge bundle of black onto the wet grass as Mark, Luke and Mariah reached them. “Who…?” Mariah couldn’t bring herself to finish the question. She was suddenly thankful it was night. Mark raked a blanket over the wet grass, then covered the body with the damp wool.

“We found two bodies.” Dusty pulled Mariah into his arms, both giving and needing strength. “Both were men, but burned too bad to recognize. I think this is Cain. I remember his belt buckle being big and square. He was burned beyond telling much else.”

“No!” Mariah screamed as she pulled away from Dusty. She dropped to her knees beside her brothers and cried softly. The words Cain had told her many times over the years drifted into her mind. “Mourning should be done when a person is born to this world, not when he leaves it for a better place.” Mariah knew her cries were for her loss of Cain, for he was finally at that place he’d longed to go.

The incandescent flames of the cabin danced like ghostly shadows around Mariah. The roof creaked and began to crumble like a poorly built child’s toy. Mariah turned and saw Josh running toward the fire. “Bethanie!” he shouted.

“No!” Dusty yelled and grabbed Josh, twisting him around just before he reached the steps. “Josh, she’s not in there.”

The roof crumbled, sending sparks and smoke flying everywhere. Josh jerked free of Dusty. “Where is she?” he shouted, his normally rational mind shattering into the edge of insanity. He was always in control, always a leader, but not now, not with his wife missing.

Dusty shouted above the arriving ranch hands. “Maybe whoever started the fire took her. Maybe she ran away.” He yelled at his men. “Spread out and look for Mrs. Weston. If she’s here, she couldn’t have gone far on foot.”

Josh nodded as he pulled himself together. He took a deep breath and drew on his years of wisdom. “Dusty’s right, boys,” he said to his sons. “I know your mother, and she would have found a way out if there was one.” His mind was in full control now as he reasoned while he talked. “She couldn’t have come out the front with the door blocked, so I’ll check the back. Fire two shots in the air when you find her.” There was no “if’ in his order, for Josh knew he would keep looking until he found her.

* * *

Bethanie could hear someone calling her name from far away. She rolled her aching head back and forth in the wet grass. She opened her eyes but the world was just as black as with them closed. “Josh,” she whispered. “Josh.”

From nowhere Josh’s arms were around her, holding her tightly to him. “Bethanie.” He knelt on the muddy bank and pulled her close. “Are you all right?”

Bethanie held on to the man she had loved for so many years. There were no arms that would ever feel as welcoming as his. The familiar smell of him encircled her and drew her as it had all those years ago in the darkness of the cave. She could feel his strong hands moving along her body in a caring, searching action.

“I’m only bruised, Josh. I’m fine.” Her words relaxed his body beside her as he pulled her even closer to him and buried his face in her tousled hair.

Josh cradled her head to his chest as he raised his gun and fired two shots into the air. Bethanie didn’t have to ask why. She’d heard the code used many times with Josh and his sons when they were looking for something or someone.

Josh returned his Colt to its holster and held her so tightly she could hardly breathe.

After a long silence, he whispered into her hair. “Bethanie, I was so afraid I’d lost you.” He covered her face with kisses. “Once I would have given anything to spend a year of my life at your side. Now, after all these years, I know not a year, not ten, not a lifetime will be enough. The day I die I’ll curse the world for not having more time with you.”

“I know, Josh. I feel the same way.” Bethanie would never tire of this man and his love.

“What happened back at the cabin? I was so worried you might be inside.”

“Josh, Cain’s body is still inside. He died of a gunshot wound before the cabin was set on fire.” Bethanie forced out the final words. “He’s my father.”

“I know, darling. He begged me once never to tell you.”

A sudden anger flavored her words. “But I was his daughter!”

Josh’s answer came slowly, as though he’d dreaded this time for years. “I gave my word. He never asked me for another thing more than to keep his secret. I had to honor his wish. You’ll never know how often I wanted to tell you, but it was enough for him just to be near you. He loved you and Mariah so deeply he couldn’t risk bringing up the past.”

Bethanie brushed Josh’s cheek in the darkness. She’d known him too many years to question his code of honor now. If he’d given his word to Cain, he had to keep it.

She closed her eyes, speaking her thoughts aloud. “When I think of all the years I hated him for leaving my mother and he was right beside me, always protecting, always caring.”

“You and the children were a great pride to him. He wouldn’t have wanted life any other way. We never talked of it, even when alone, but I could see the wealth you brought him in his eyes every time he looked at you or Mariah.”

“Now he’s dead.” Bethanie fought back a sob. “Smith and Mayson killed him. They think they burned me in the fire.”

“But why?”

“I know that Smith killed Elliot Mayson. He meant to kill Dusty, but shot the wrong man. Cain and I heard him confess to the murder.”

“We’ll get you back to the ranch and send for the
district marshal and any Rangers in the area. They’ll straighten this mess out. By tomorrow we’ll have this cleared up, and I’ll see both Smith and Wes Mayson behind bars.”

Josh pulled Bethanie to her feet and under his protective arm just as Mark and Luke came sliding down the incline. They almost knocked their parents over trying to keep from falling face first into the muddy gully.

Josh might grumble at them to be more careful, but Bethanie could only hug them both over and over as they moved back to the fire. They were her sons, her touch of immortality. Cain and Mary would live on forever as long as they had children and grandchildren.

Josh seemed to understand her need to wrap into her quiet world. He sent the boys back to the ranch and moved away to make sure the fire was under control. Bethanie went to where Mariah knelt beside Cain’s body.

Mariah held her hand out to her mother. “I can’t believe he’s gone.”

“I know,” Bethanie answered as she lay a hand on top of Mariah’s head. “Before he died, Cain told me he was my father.” She looked away from the dark mass on the ground. “All these years and I never knew.”

Mariah touched the blanket covering Cain’s body. “He was my grandfather.” Her voice broke at her final word.