How to Lasso a Cowboy (15 page)

Major Delaney had assured her and her father that the rebs had forfeited their land when they left it to fight against the Union, that they couldn't pay the taxes, and if loyal citizens like her father didn't buy it for pennies on the dollar, then someone else would.

She had never liked the idea, but her father glowed with the prospect of being a landowner, a “squire,” he would say, such as those who had forced him from Ireland.

In a life marked by one failure after another, he'd finally found his pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. He had a way of ignoring the hatred in the community and enjoyed, instead, the company of others like him: men and women lured south by Major Delaney, who headed the Union forces in the Texas hill country.

Her father loved this land. As opposed to some other
areas of Texas they'd traversed, it was green, veined by streams and dotted by trees. With the land came cattle. Even horses. He had never ridden before and it had taken weeks before he could sit a horse without falling off or being thrown. Elizabeth had never seen him so determined.

Interest had always quickly died before. He was a typical Irishman, full of charm and blarney. He'd always been immensely likable. But he had never stuck to anything before. He would always turn to drink, instead. He hadn't done that here. She prayed he wouldn't.

Still, she didn't like the guilt that nibbled at her.

She reassured herself that the man who had ridden up to the ranch was a traitor to his country. He looked like a brigand, and he certainly didn't look like someone who could care for a child. Marilee was finally losing the tight, pinched look she'd had since seeing her father die, and the fierce nightmares that had kept her screaming night after night were becoming less frequent.

If he is who he claims, he has every right to her.

But what would it do to Marilee?

And to me?

Elizabeth had given up on any idea of becoming a mother. She had once wanted children more than anything else. But she moved with her father from one location to another, often searching for him in taverns, before he lost what little money she and, sometimes, he earned. He'd had to leave Boston just ahead of the law after becoming embroiled in a dubious scheme.

Then he had met a man in a Chicago tavern who had made him an offer he could not refuse. On behalf of a third party, the man said he was looking for men to go to Texas. Land was available. Good land.

Land had always been her father's dream. All his get-rich-quick schemes had been for land. When one after another failed, he drank more heavily.

Elizabeth loved him. He'd been both mother and father to her after her mother died on the voyage from Ireland. He could have abandoned her, but somehow he'd always found
a woman—usually a widow—who would look after her. Some more carefully than others. All with the hope that Michael McGuire would marry them. Then one night he would leave, taking his daughter with him and often as many of the widow's possessions as he could carry.

He loved her with totality and she did the same, cooling her conscience with the knowledge that what he did he did for her.

This piece of land—McGuire land—had broken that pattern. She had seen a new clarity in his eyes, new determination. He worked harder than he'd ever worked. He had learned to ride, to mend a fence. He had hope. Real hope this time.

And she had Marilee.

No one was going to take either away.

SETH
rode into Canaan, a small farming town twenty miles east of his ranch.

By God, it
was
still his ranch.

Like everything else in Texas, Canaan had changed. Union uniforms were everywhere. He took fierce pride in his own worn Confederate gray trousers. They were all that survived imprisonment and the journey that followed it. The rest of his uniform was long gone.

He wore a worn shirt and a thin coat against a wind that had grown cold. He remembered the quick change of weather in fall. One day as sweet as a day in May, the next ferocious winter.

He considered the few coins he had. Enough to buy Chance some deserved oats and himself a bath and shave. Perhaps then he wouldn't scare women and children.

Some clean clothes. Perhaps he would feel halfway human again.

His thoughts went back to the woman standing in the doorway of his house. He didn't like the way she kept intruding into his thoughts.

Still, he admired her courage.

Hell, any Texas woman would have done the same.

And yet it had been obvious to him that she'd not been born and raised to confront hostile men with a rifle.

The streets of the town were filled, but mostly with uniforms. His stomach muscles tightened. He had never believed in the war and had watched the clouds approach over four years ago with apprehension. Yet there had never been a question of not going with his brothers and his friends. He was fighting for his state, not against the Union. His family had never had slaves, but he had firmly believed that Texas had the right to write its own destiny.

It had been prison that had turned duty into hatred. He had watched men die needlessly because of sickness and starvation. Now he had only contempt for the occupying army.

There were new buildings. He thought about riding to the sheriff 's office but decided his best course of action was the saloon. Abe Turling would fill him in on everything. He always knew everyone's business.

He dismounted and tied the reins to a hitch post and went inside.

In the past, he had always been surrounded by friends on entering the saloon. Now his gaze found only unfamiliar faces.

A few Union officers sat at a table with two men Seth didn't recognize. One was thin with a pale complexion and sour expression. The other was a large man with a goatee. One man stood alone at the end of the bar. With a start, Seth noticed the stranger wore a marshal's badge.

No one else.

But Abe stood in back of the bar, looking at him with narrowed eyes, obviously trying to decide whether he meant trouble or not. Abe Turling had never permitted trouble in his establishment.

Seth strode to the empty end of the bar, ignoring the curious stares directed his way.

Abe moved toward him, a frown on his face.

“Abe? Don't recognize a good customer?”

Abe stared at him for a moment, then a smile split his lips.

“Seth. Ain't you a sight for sore eyes.” His gaze quickly surveyed the room, then returned to Seth. “We figured you for dead.” He poured Seth a glass of whiskey. “Looks like you need this, boy.”

Seth hadn't been a boy in a very long time but he took the glass and took a deep swallow.

He started to dig in his pocket, but Abe shook his head. “On the house.”

Abe was uncommonly frugal and had never been known to give a drink on the house.

Seth's puzzled glance was met with a warning expression, then a gesture of his head indicated Seth should go into a back room used for private poker games.

Seth nodded, took another swallow, and Abe turned away to another customer.

Seth watched for several moments. Eyes glanced over him, then dismissed him as a saddle tramp. He gulped down the rest of the whiskey, realizing that not only had Abe donated the drink, he'd donated a glass of his good stuff.

It burned its way down his throat and warmed his stomach, then he went into the hall and opened the door to the private room.

He had played poker here many a night. It was reserved for the locals, for a handful of friends who wanted to play serious poker without onlookers. Seth had always sat in the same chair. His friends, Nathaniel, Gabe, and Quin, sat in the others. The fifth seat switched around.

Now Nat and Gabe were dead. He didn't know about Quin.

He leaned against the wall and waited.

Twenty minutes later, Abe slipped inside with a bottle and two glasses. “Hate to tell you, boy, but you smell.”

“I know,” Seth admitted. “I wanted to get home and didn't stop for the niceties.”

“Hell, we thought you was dead.”

“I almost was. Got some damn fever at Elmira Prison in
New York. It took me over a month after the war to recuperate. Took me the rest of the time to get back.”

“The twins?”

“Died next to each other.”

“Damn, I'm sorry to hear that. Nearly every family around here has lost sons.”

“What in the hell has happened? I stopped by the ranch. Some woman accosted me with a rifle. Said her father owned it.”

“McGuire,” Abe said, spitting into a spittoon located near the table.

“I saw my father's grave,” Seth said flatly.

“I'm sorry about that,” Abe said. “Sorry as I can be. I admired the Major.”

“What happened?”

“All of Texas is under military rule. This area is under a Major Delaney, crooked as they come. His men steal cattle and ride over crops, then when people can't pay taxes, he has stooges ready to buy land at practically nothing.

“Happened to the Major and he didn't take it well,” Abe continued. “He and Dillon weren't ready to go. He resisted and a Union sergeant shot him. Shot your brother, too, but he was able to get away. He's wanted.”

“My sister?”

“Little Marilee? McGuire's daughter took her in after Trini got sick a few months back.”

“Trini? Is she all right?”

Abe shook his head. “McGuire let her stay there in return for keeping his house. She sickened about three months ago, died of some fever. I think it was just plain heartbreak. You know how much she and Luis loved your pa.”

“You mean Marilee's at the ranch?”

Abe nodded. “You didn't see her?”

Anger coiled in Seth's gut. The woman said nothing about his sister being there.

“Hell no, or she would be with me now.” He took a deep breath. “My brother left Marilee with squatters?”

“He had no choice. There's a thousand-dollar reward on his head. He couldn't drag a seven-year-old along with him.”

“One of the neighbors . . .”

“Most of them are gone, chased out just like your father. Those still here have all they can do to hold on to their land.”

Shock caused words to wedge in his throat. He couldn't imagine a neighboring family refusing to give shelter to a child in trouble. And why in the hell had the woman not admitted that his sister was in the house?

It obviously wasn't enough to be a party to murder and the theft of land. They felt they could take a child as well. He swore under his breath.

“The law? Is Nolan still sheriff?”

“Nope. He was dismissed by Delaney now that the town's under Union occupation.”

“I saw a man with a badge outside.”

“That's Tom Evans. U.S. marshal. This is part of his territory, though the army pretty well controls things. He stops in occasionally. Keeping up with business, he says.”

Seth filed that in his mind. “What happened to the Flynns and Hopewells?”

“Ed Flynn shot himself when he heard his boy was killed. Mrs. Flynn went to stay with a sister in Missouri. Hopewell's daughter was raped by a Union soldier. The family pulled out two months ago.”

He and Vince Flynn had gone to school together. So many gone.

The need to see his sister grew stronger.

“I'm going to go get her,” he said, his anger becoming a fiery torch in his gut.

“You might talk to Dillon first,” Abe said. “Common wisdom is that your sister is doing fine where she is. She attends church with Miss McGuire here in town, and she looks well tended.”

“Do you know where I can find him?”

“No, but I think he's nearby. There's been a lot of cattle
rustling lately. Delaney swears it's your brother and some other locals.”

“Is it?”

Abe shrugged. “Mebbe. Mebbe no.”

“And the men in the saloon?”

“Delaney's henchmen. One is a so-called civil administrator appointed by Delaney. Does whatever he's told. I hate serving them, but I don't have any choice. They would close me down, and the Belle is all I have.”

Seth nodded. “They know your sympathies?”

“They probably suspect, but I'm the only saloon in town. Right now we live and let live. Now, about Marilee . . . are you sure you can take care of her? Mebbe you should wait . . .”

Seth impaled the man with his eyes.

“I appreciate your concern, Abe, but she's my sister and I'm not waiting.”

“And then?”

“I don't know. I'll find someplace we can stay.”

“And Dillon?”

“I'll find him, too.” But bitterness seeped deeper in his soul. All his dreams and hopes had centered around the ranch and building it with his brother and father. He'd thought about it during the long months he'd spent in prison. The ranch was not large, nor had it been particularly successful. Cattle was plentiful in Texas and getting them to market difficult if not impossible.