The Raging Hearts: The Coltrane Saga, Book 2 (53 page)

“Boy…” Sam pointed a shaking finger, his face reddening.

Kitty held up her hands, moving her head from side to side in disgust. “That’s enough for today. Please, both of you leave me now. I’ve much to do to make ready for the trip.”

“Kitty, I need to talk to you. It won’t take long,” Sam said quietly.

“All right.” She nodded to Jerome. “I will see you tomorrow.”

With one last glare at Sam Bucher, Danton opened the door and stepped outside.

Sam turned to Kitty with misery-filled eyes. “I don’t blame you for making this trip, honey. I’m glad that your mind is made up. But there’s something I want you to bear in mind. Whatever his reasons were, Travis thought he was doing the right thing when he took that boy of his and rode away from here. He left me behind in a mess, and he knew it, and look what good friends we are. He felt he had a damned good reason. When I find out what it is, I’ll know how to deal with him.”

“He did it to hurt me,” Kitty said bitterly, walking to the sideboard to pour herself another glass of wine. “He hates me, Sam. He never really loved me. He just wanted to hurt me because he blames me for so many things. Why couldn’t he just leave me alone?”

“
You
didn’t leave him alone.
You
wanted him to believe that boy was his. You obviously still loved him.”

“I did then. I don’t anymore.”

“Kitty, you’ll never make me believe that. I know you and I know Travis, and you’re two of the most stubborn people I ever saw, but you love each other. I saw it before either of you did. I’m the one that pointed out that fact to Travis, and he called me a fool.”

She sighed with exasperation. “That was
then
, Sam. This is now. What’s in the past no longer matters. He hates me now, and he took John to try and hurt me.”

She brushed a tear away, turned her back so Sam wouldn’t see.

“You do still love each other, Kitty. A lot of things have happened, I agree, but I believe, with all my heart, that you two will get together. I
know
. Now, I want you to promise me that when we get there, you’ll let me try to talk to Travis before you let that hothead Danton do anything foolish.”

“I promise,” she murmured.

Sam gave her a fatherly peck on the cheek and left quietly.

Chapter Thirty-One

Pulling an ornate silk rope, Kitty opened the heavy, full-length drapes of gold velvet. She could see the city of New Orleans through wide, multi-paned glass doors which led onto the balcony. Pushing these open, she stepped outside. A cool breeze drifted across her face, and she wrinkled her nose at the smell. Sea air, Sam had called it.

The St. Louis Cathedral loomed up out of the darkness Sam had pointed out landmarks early that morning before he left on his mission. She knew the place called Jackson Square was somewhere beyond the cathedral, the busiest section in the daytime. The sound of laughter and voices drifted through the night, and she supposed the sound came from people leaving the Paris Opera after an evening’s entertainment.

Kitty was growing more anxious with each passing moment. Sam had said he would do his best to return by dark. “I just don’t know how things are going to go,” he had told her, a somber expression on his leathery face. “Travis ain’t the kind you just walk right up to and start telling what’s on your mind. You got to feel him out, see what kind of mood he’s in, and go from there.”

“I don’t care what kind of mood he’s in,” she had wailed impatiently. “Just tell him if he doesn’t give my baby back, I’m going to send hired guns into those swamps. I’m not bluffing, Sam. I mean it.”

Seated in the hotel dining room that morning at breakfast, Sam and Jerome had eaten ravenously. Kitty could not touch a bite.

Jerome had given Sam a contemptuous glare and said, “Money talks, my good man. Wait and see. If you return without that boy, I will have men ready to go into the bayou by sunrise tomorrow. I promise you that.”

“Oh, you’re out of your mind.”

“Stop it!” Kitty had slapped her palms on the table, sending the dishes into a brief dance. People turned to stare, and she lowered her voice, staring at the two men alternately. “I listened to your quarreling for two weeks. It was bad enough riding bumpy stage coaches and dirty trains, and wondering if we’d ever get here. All the while, I had to listen to you two sniping at each other.”

Sam had replied, “You should have left him at home. He ain’t good for a damn thing. Travis is just gonna kill him.”

Jerome had paled slightly at that but recovered to snap, “I consider myself quite accurate with a gun. I killed my share of Yanks.”

“You ain’t no match for Travis Coltrane.” With that, Sam rose. “Now I’ll get back soon’s I can,” he had said with finality. “You’re just going to have to sit tight and be patient.”

Kitty had spent the rest of that endless day fighting off Jerome’s advances. He was most determined, but she was damned if she’d ever love another man.

After a fretful dinner, during which Sam did not appear, she had retired to her room. Now, standing on the balcony, from the corner of her eye she saw a man’s shadow in the room behind her. Kitty managed to stifle her scream just in time—it was Sam.

She ran to him.

“I didn’t mean to frighten you,” he said. “I figured you were downstairs eating, so I just let myself in.”

She studied his face. “You have bad news,” she whispered.

He lowered himself into one of the ornate chairs beside the fireplace, not looking at her. “Yes, I’m afraid I do.”

She moved on stiff legs to seat herself opposite him, leaning forward anxiously. “You talked to Travis? Did you see John? Is he all right?” Her heart was pounding.

Sam stared into the fireplace as intensely as if flames actually crackled in the empty grate. With great difficulty, he forced himself to speak. “Kitty, I found Travis right where I figured he’d be, at his cabin in the bayou, up on them stilts. He didn’t seem at all surprised to see me. In fact, he seemed kind of glad I was there.”

“The baby,” she said intensely, reaching across to clutch his knee. “Tell me about my baby. Was he all right?”

“Little John?” He met her eyes for the first time, and a grin made his moustache and beard quiver. “Ahh, that boy’s fine, just fine. He’s his granddaddy and his daddy all rolled into one, and you couldn’t ask for a better combination. Travis has got an old Creole woman there looking after him while he’s out trapping and fishing during the day. The boy is just fine, Kitty. You ain’t got a worry in the world about that. It shows in Travis’s face how much he loves the boy.”

“But did you tell him I’m here?” she asked, feeling a wave of desperation. “Did you tell him we came for John?”

“Well, I’m getting to that. Right away, Travis wanted to know had I turned in my badge and come home to stay, and when I told him I’d only come for a visit, on business, he looked at me in that way of his, you know, like he can see right through to your brain and know what you’re thinking?”

She nodded. He had looked at her that way many times.

“I just came right out and told him why I’d come, and that you was with me. I reminded him he was breaking a law by taking that boy because he had no legal claim on him. He just looked at me like I was tetched and then laughed and said the law of the bayou said otherwise, and if I thought I was going to touch that boy, I’d better just go ahead and draw on him and be done with it, because I’d have to take him out over his dead body. He meant it, too, and that’s what really got to me, Kitty. Me and Travis, we been together a mighty long time. Been through hell and back together. And there he sits, telling me to draw a gun on him. Now, he knew I couldn’t draw on him.”

“But you did tell him I would not return without my son?” she cried.

“Yeah, I told him all that and a lot more, too, about how you and him really love each other, but you’re both too proud and stubborn to admit it. Well, it seems that when Corey McRae was dying, you didn’t know it, but Travis was standing right behind you. He said you took up a handful of dirt in your hand and said, ‘This is mine now. Whatever else is over and done with, this land is mine…’”

He gave her a long, searching look. “Did you do that, Kitty? Did you pick up a handful of dirt and say all that?”

“Well, something like that, yes,” she said, perplexed that Travis had made something of it. “What I meant was that even though I’d lost my father, and Travis, and had lived in hell with Corey, the land was now mine—mine and John’s. I was reaching out to touch the only thing that was real to me.”

He nodded. “Yeah, I can understand that, but you have to understand that Travis took it another way. He always did feel that your land meant more to you than he did, and he resented it. So when he saw you clutching that dirt, he said something just popped inside him.

“All along, he didn’t know it, but he was clinging to the hope that maybe you did love him. But right then, he knew there was no hope. He’d already decided the boy was really his, so he just did what came natural. He went and got his son and he came back here. And here is where he plans to stay.”

“Oh, God,” Kitty moaned, swaying to and fro, her hands wrapped around her knees. “I didn’t mean it the way Travis took it, Sam. I swear to you on my father’s grave.”

“Well, me believing you don’t matter. It’s what Travis believes. I spent all day arguing with him, trying to make him see things the way they really are. But he’s stubborn. He don’t want no part of you, and the boy stays where he is.”

She gave a short, bitter laugh. “And you said you thought he loved me. You were going to make him see that. You were a fool, Sam, a fool! And so was I, to ever get mixed up with such a villain!”

She got to her feet and began pacing up and down anxiously. “I’m not going back without my baby, Sam. I won’t leave without him. If I have to go into those swamps by myself and crawl on my hands and knees, I won’t go without him.”

“Oh, I told him all that,” he said matter-of-factly. “He just laughed. He said he reckoned you had so much money now you thought you could do anything, but the one thing you couldn’t buy was that boy. He says as ruthless as you are, he don’t want you for the mother of his son. I’m sorry, Kitty, but that’s what he said, and I have to shoot straight with you. It’s over.”

She stared at him incredulously. “You mean you think I should just leave and go back to North Carolina without John? I won’t do it, Sam.”

Sam got up and walked to where she stood, putting his strong arms about her. “Honey, I love you like you was my own daughter, and I ache inside because I know you’re aching. But believe me when I say that I know Travis better’n you or anybody else. And he ain’t going to give up that boy. You’re wasting your time.”

She shoved him away. “So you’re scared of him. Well, I’m not. I’ll fight him with my bare hands if I have to.”

“Oh, Kitty, Kitty.” He shook his head from side to side, and she could see that his eyes were moist. “I wish I could help you. I honestly do. But there’s nothing anybody can do. Maybe, in time to come, he’ll change. But for now, there’s just nothing we can do.”

“I’m not giving up my child, Sam.”

They faced each other silently for several moments, and then Sam sighed and said, “Well, I guess I never figured you would, Kitty, and hard as it is for me to say this, I have to be honest and say I won’t help you anymore. I did what I could. I brought you here. I went into the bayou and found Travis and talked till I was blue in the face, trying to get him to change his mind. Now I’ve done all I can do, and I won’t take up arms against my best friend. I’m going back to North Carolina and finish the job I’ve got to do up there. Then I’ll probably come back here and head into the bayou, too. It’s my home. Just like North Carolina is your home. That’s where you belong.”

“And I won’t go there without my baby.”

“Well, dang it, girl, how do you expect to get that baby?” His eyes flashed. “I done told you, Travis ain’t giving him up. Are you going to march in there with a gun? Hell, you wouldn’t get past the first swamp before a snake or a gator had you.”

She pursed her lips, and up went that stubborn chin, and Sam knew Travis was in for a fight. “I’ll find a way.” Her voice was clipped. “Don’t you fret about me anymore, Sam. Believe me, I’ll find a way.”

“Travis will figure you don’t aim to give up easy. He’ll be on his guard.”

“I don’t care. I won’t go home without my baby.”

Sighing, Sam shook his head. Shoulders slumped in defeat, he walked to the door. “Kitty, there’s a stage heading east tomorrow at noon. I plan to be on it. I wish you’d give up and come back with me.”

Her fists were clenched, her lower lip trembling. “How can you ask me to leave here, Sam? That’s my baby out there in that…that damned swamp! You know I can’t go off and leave him. God knows, he’s all I’ve got.”

Sam stood looking at her a long time. Then he turned away once again. “Good-bye Kitty. God bless you,” he said quietly.

And then he was gone.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Jerome Danton waved his arms in the air wildly. “I tell you, woman, it simply cannot be done. I’ve spent a small fortune trying. Two men are dead, and six have refused to go back in there. The word is out. There isn’t enough money in the world to hire anybody to go back and try again. You’ve got to face the facts. It cannot be done! Travis Coltrane is in the bayou with your son, and you are never going to get him back.”