Promises Kept (12 page)

“You don’t need to help me. I’ll have this done in no time.”

“You worked hard on that fine meal, and I don’t mind helping with kitchen chores. You wash, I’ll dry.” Truth was, he rarely helped in the kitchen. He’d normally go to the stable to take care of animals that needed tending, but tonight he’d assigned that task to Rex. After a few minutes of working in companionable silence, he asked, “Where did you learn to cook like that?”

“I’ve cooked since I was a young girl,” she responded.

“Was your mother a good cook?” he pressed.

Uncomfortable talking about herself, Victoria scrubbed a plate longer than necessary. “Not really.”

“Your grandmother?”

“Hmm . . . oh, I guess,” she said softly.

Obviously a subject she didn’t care to discuss, Colt figured. “What are your plans now that . . . well, that things didn’t work out here?”

“I’ll return to St. Louis and keep working for Mrs. Wellington.”

Colt took another plate from her. “How old are the boys?”

“They will be seven soon.” His question reminded her that she had hoped the boys would have a home in time to celebrate their next birthday.

He was stunned her boys were that old. If she was twenty, and he doubted that, she would have had those boys when she was what . . . thirteen? Then it registered she’d said both boys would be seven. “Both of them! You mean they’re twins?” He hadn’t noticed that in St. Louis; he was too busy looking at her.

She smiled at him. “Yes, they are.”

Colt eyed her small frame, trying to imagine her carrying one baby. “That is a whole lot of responsibility,” he said. “I can see why you came out here to meet up with Chet.” Considering the forlorn look that passed over her face, he could have kicked his own rear end for bringing up Chet.

Tate burst through the kitchen door. “Mr. McBride, you best come look!”

Hearing fear in Tate’s voice, Colt moved fast. He grabbed his holster from the peg and bolted for the door. Victoria rushed through the door behind them. Colt had his gun strapped on by the time he stepped off the back porch. He smelled the smoke before he saw the light in the distance that could only indicate a fire. T. J. and some of the other men came running from the bunkhouse.

“You figure that’s near—” T. J. didn’t finish his sentence because Colt took off at a run for the stable.

“Yeah, it’s near Tom’s cabin,” Colt replied when T. J. caught up with him. Before they reached the stable, Rex was leading several saddled horses out. Colt grabbed the reins and jumped on Razor’s back. He didn’t know what he would find, but he had a nagging suspicion that this was no accident. All of his men had worked for him for a long time, and they had seen dry conditions like this before. He was confident that even if someone had a smoke they wouldn’t have been so careless as to drop a cigarette butt on the ground. Colt called to his men, “Everyone grab a shovel and some buckets, and ride like the devil is behind you to get those cattle to safety.” He pointed to Rex. “You, Lane, and Tate stay here with Miss Eastman in case there’s trouble afoot. Be ready for anything, and no one goes in that house that you don’t know. If you see trouble coming, fire three shots.”

Considering all of the trouble he’d had lately, he reasoned the perpetrators might be using the fire as a ruse to get the men away from the house so they could set it on fire.

He hadn’t noticed Victoria outside until that moment, and he nudged Razor toward her. “The men will be just outside. Tate will be inside with you. Stay in the house unless my men say different.”

Victoria’s eyes were fixed on the fire in the distance. “I heard you say it could be near Helen’s house.”

“It’s near their house, but let’s not borrow trouble. Stay here, I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“What can I do?”

He knew she would sit and worry if she didn’t stay busy. “Make lots of strong coffee. The men will need it when we come back. You might want to keep some of that fine dinner warmed up. A prayer wouldn’t hurt.”

Victoria watched as Colt rode toward the fire, recalling a night, not unlike this one, when flames fed on everything in sight, and God was silent. Tonight she couldn’t find the words for a prayer.

“Tom, what happened?” Colt shouted, scrambling off Razor before he came to a full stop. Tom Morris was pumping water into buckets and Mrs. Morris was scurrying about, dumping water on every bush around the cabin. The fire was still a good distance away, but the wind was blowing in their direction. Colt could hear his men yelling in the distance as they tried to round up what cattle hadn’t run off and move them a safe distance away from the fire.

“I saw them set the fire, Colt,” Tom yelled, relinquishing the pumping to T. J. “Them low-down dirty sons-of-Satan tried to set the fire in a circle around the cattle, but I shot one of them out of his saddle before he could finish his evil deed. I think most of the cattle took off, so we didn’t lose many. Still, it’ll be days rounding them up.”

Colt and his men grabbed as many buckets as they could hold and started throwing water on the cabin. He turned to face the red blaze that was inching closer as the wind whipped around them. He figured they didn’t have long if the wind didn’t shift, so he instructed four men to start digging a trench between the cabin and the fire. It wasn’t so much the house that concerned him, but he knew Mrs. Morris would hate to lose things precious to her.

“How many were there?” he asked Tom.

“I saw six of them. Now there’s only five.”

Once the cabin was as wet as they could get it, everyone turned their attention to digging the trench and filling it with water.

“Thank the Good Lord there is still plenty of water in that well,” Mrs. Morris said with a weariness that worried Colt.

“You go sit on that porch and rest,” he told her. He looked at the fire again. “I think the wind has shifted. Let’s get this trench filled in case it changes direction again.”

They finished filling the trench, but thankfully, with the help of the wind, it looked as though the fire was going to burn back into itself. They all stood side by side watching the flames, praying the wind didn’t shift back toward them.

“How’d you see them?” T. J. asked Tom.

“I just happened to walk on the porch to . . . to have a smoke.” Tom glanced at his wife, and added sheepishly, “You know how the wife don’t like the smell of tobacco.”

Helen gave him a disapproving look. “I know you’re still smoking, you old coot. I reckon I can forgive you this time since you saved our hides.”

Colt chuckled at that. He noted Mrs. Morris was already in her nightclothes, and she looked like she was ready to drop from exhaustion. “Helen, go on inside and get what you need for the night. You two are coming to the house with us.”

“We’ll be fine right where we are,” Tom replied, rankled that Colt made it sound like he couldn’t take care of his wife.

“No argument. I don’t want you two alone out here without backup until I find out what’s going on, and the men will be out for hours rounding up strays.” He gave Tom a long look, and could see he was about to dig his heels in. The man didn’t want to face the fact that he was in his seventies and wouldn’t be worth a plug nickel against killers like Hoyt Nelson. All the same, he tried to smooth the old man’s injured pride. “Tom, you saw for yourself these men don’t come alone, and you couldn’t handle four or five of them. You have Helen to think about, and she’s not looking too good right now.”

“What if them no-good skunks come back to burn us out?” Tom asked.

“I’ll have the men ride by here throughout the night to make sure they don’t,” Colt replied patiently. Colt thought about telling Tom he could stay with his men, but he knew Mrs. Morris wouldn’t rest if she had to worry about her husband.

Chapter Twelve

Propping his feet on his desk, Euan Wallace leaned back in his leather chair and swirled the brandy in the glass he held. This was his favorite room in his home, the place where he held meetings with his men. In his estimation, the room conveyed the powerful, wealthy man that he considered himself to be. The well-appointed study held his vast collection of leather-bound books, mostly volumes of law, medicine, and the classics. He readily boasted to any visitor that he’d read each and every book. He prided himself on being an educated man, and he had no one to credit but himself. Having been orphaned in England as a babe, everything he’d accomplished was due to his own intellect and cunning. He’d survived the harsh streets of London before making his way to America as a teenager. In America, he’d not only survived, he thrived. Before he reached Wyoming, he had already amassed considerable wealth, and now he owned more land than even he had dreamed of. But it wasn’t enough. He wanted an empire.
Wallace’s Empire
. He liked the sound of that. He hadn’t scratched his way through life to allow these ignorant, crude cowboys to get the upper hand. Men like Barlow and McBride thought they had a right to the land because it was inherited. If they’d had to fight and claw for it like he had, he figured they wouldn’t have lasted long. He was going to own every blade of grass surrounding his land, one way or the other, and he would eliminate anyone who got in his way. He didn’t play by anyone’s rules; he took what he wanted, lawful or not, made no difference to him. It was fortuitous that Barlow had dropped over dead. His death saved a bullet.

He took a long swallow of the warm brandy, his mind skipping in a different direction. For months he’d been thinking it was time to take a wife so he could have some sons. Problem was, he didn’t want to waste time courting a woman, but he would do what was necessary to build his empire. Women seemed to find him handsome enough, still in his prime, tall and lean, and he hadn’t lost any of his blond hair. Not that it made a difference; he knew it was his money that attracted the ladies. The thought of a pretty woman succumbing to his every need on a daily basis appealed to his ego. His thoughts were interrupted when Hoyt strolled into his study without knocking.

“Didn’t anyone ever teach you to knock?”

Grinning, Hoyt walked to the side table and picked up the bottle. After pouring himself a generous amount of whiskey, he replied, “I didn’t know I had to.”

“I expect that courtesy from every man on my ranch,” Wallace snapped. “Don’t forget it in the future.” No matter how many times he’d instructed the two Mexican women who worked for him to announce visitors, it was a task they couldn’t seem to handle. He didn’t want people waltzing in as they pleased.

Hoyt eyed Wallace and, for a heartbeat, considered putting a bullet between his eyes. The only thing that kept him from pulling his revolver was the fact that Wallace was paying him a lot of money, including a large bonus when he got the land he wanted. He planned to hang around Promise longer anyway, since he had unfinished business: Hearing how fast a draw McBride was supposed to be, he wanted to find out for himself. He might as well milk Wallace for as much as he could while it lasted. He’d seen his fair share of nothing towns, and there were worse places than Promise. At least in this town there were some decent-looking women at the saloon where he could play poker anytime. He heard Wallace clear his throat, indicating he was waiting for him to state his business.

“Ben Roper was shot,” he said.

“Is he dead?” This wasn’t the kind of news Wallace wanted to hear. He didn’t want anything, or anyone, left behind to implicate him.

“Yeah. That old man at the cabin shot him.”

Angered by the carelessness of his men, Wallace leaned forward and snapped, “I gave implicit instructions before you left. Now there’s a way to link that fire to me!”

Hoyt laughed. “Not a chance. We sat on a knoll watching the fire; it burned right where he fell off his horse. If the bullet didn’t kill him, the fire surely did. Nobody will recognize him, that’s a fact. There couldn’t have been anything left.”

Leaning back in his chair, appeased for the moment, Wallace said, “Good, good.” He swallowed another shot of whiskey, and had another thought. “Did you bring his horse back?”

Hoyt thought Wallace was almost as cold-blooded as he was. “Yeah, he’s in the stable.”

Hoyt finished his drink and stood to leave when Wallace said, “Next time I give instructions I expect them to be followed to the letter.”

Hesitating, Hoyt wondered if the man knew how close he was to meeting his maker.

“Not much left of him to identify,” Colt told Seth Parker, the sheriff of Promise. “There were six riders, and that fire was set deliberately.” After the fire had burned out the night before, Colt found what was left of the man Tom shot. It was a disgusting sight, but the smell was worse. Burned flesh was a smell a man didn’t soon forget. Even though the man was up to no-good on his land, Colt hoped the bullet got him before the fire. He figured the worst kind of man didn’t deserve to burn to death. A bullet would have been more merciful.

Colt and T. J. had wrapped the man’s remains in a blanket, and when dawn broke, Colt transported him to town in the buckboard. There was no way he would bury him on McBride land. He expected even God would understand his reasoning for that. With a bit of luck someone might come to town inquiring about a missing man. If not, they would bury him in the town cemetery as an unknown person.

“Well, if he can’t be identified, how can you be sure it was one of Wallace’s men that set that fire?” Parker asked matter-of-factly. “Maybe a cowboy decided to have a smoke and got careless.”

“Tom saw them with the torches, and that’s why he shot one of them,” Colt nearly bellowed. “And we both know who’s behind these
accidents
.”

“I don’t arrest men on assumptions. Now if you have proof . . .” The sheriff let the sentence trail off like a challenge.

Colt hadn’t fooled himself into thinking that Parker would be of any help; he’d proven his incompetence as well as his allegiance, time and time again. “Judge Ross should be here in a few days. I’ll talk to him.”

Parker gave him a smug grin. “He’ll say the same thing, Ya gotta have proof before you go spoutin’ off at the mouth.”