C
HAPTER
F
IFTY-ONE
“Did I not say I'd build a house fit for an Irish queen?” Barrie Delaney bowed.
“You did and you have.” Kate looked into the old pirate's crafty eyes. “There's glass in the windows, Captain.”
“Ah, the eyes of a beautiful woman miss nothing, to be sure. The glass was founded, Kate. Founded by my associate and fellow gentleman of fortune, Coot Lawson, Esquire.”
“Found where?”
“A-laying on the prairie where somebody had thrown them away, pane by pane. âAh-ha,' says Coot, âhere's a fine kettle o' fish. A dangerous pile of glass lying in the path of any innocent rider.' Now Coot, being such a caring cove, got his men to remove the glass and then he thought to himself, âI know. I'll take it to Captain Delaney, who is building a fine house for Mrs. Kate Kerrigan. Surely every window needs glass and these panes will not go to waste.'”
Then, triumphantly, Delaney said, “And that's how come there is glass in every window of the Kerrigan mansion.”
“Coot found it, huh? How much did you, or rather me, pay him?”
“A small reward, Kate my darlin',” the captain said. “It was such a mere trifle that I've forgotten the amount, but I'll remember when I put it on my bill.”
“And maybe I'll remember to hang you and Coot Lawson from the same tree,” Kate said. “Mr. Webbe, you did a fine job with the columns. I declare, it makes the house look like a Southern mansion indeed.”
“They need some finishing touches. I won't leave a job half done,” Hargate Webbe said.
“I will pay you for your work, Mr. Webbe,” Kate said. “You can be assured of that.”
Delaney laid his hand on the hilt of his cutlass and eyed the little stonemason. “And there will be no padding of the bill, or you'll answer to me.”
“I'm an honest man, Mrs. Kerrigan.” He returned the captain's baleful stare. “Unlike some I could mention.”
He was spared further abuse when Kate's youngest daughter said, “Ma, can I see my room now? When you were gone, Trace and Quinn wouldn't let me.”
“Yes, Shannon, but the house isn't finished yet and you must step carefully. Captain Delaney will take you upstairs and show it to you. Where is your sister?”
“Ivy is already in the house, Kate, pestering my men about making her furniture.” Delaney stretched out a hand to Shannon. “Come, lass, I'll show you your room. I built it meself by hand, knowing it was for a right pretty girl.”
After Delaney and Shannon left, Webbe said, “You'll use that fine door from the cabin for your new house, Mrs. Kerrigan?”
“Yes. The people who lived in the cabin before us brought it with them by wagon from up north somewhere. The entire family was killed by Indians.”
“A tragedy indeed.”
“We gave their remains a decent, Christian burial,” Kate said, “so there is always that.”
“Amen.” He turned and left her standing in front of the almost finished house.
Kate stood for a while listening to the tuneless cacophony of hammering as Delaney's men worked on the interior of the house. She had to concede that for a crew of pirate rogues they were doing a fine job and there had not been a single shooting or cutting since the work started.
She turned to the sound of hooves behind her. Quinn was out on the range with the hands and she'd sent Frank and Trace to check on the cholera wagons. She thought it was possible that the disease had run its course and the survivors had moved on.
Frank's face was grim, and Trace was gray around the gills, his blue eyes haunted as though he'd been given a glimpse of hell.
Speaking from the saddle, Frank said, “They haven't moved, Kate. The horses are grazing all over the place, but the wagons are still where we last saw them.”
“The people? What about the people?”
“Ma,” Trace said, his voice small, “the people are all dead. They all died inside the wagon circle, every last one of them. There are no living people left.”
“But . . . but why, Frank? Oh my God, don't tell me they starved to death?”
“No, the cholera took them all,” Frank said. “As to why . . . I think they sacrificed themselves, Kate. They knew if they traveled on, they'd spread the plague far and wide so they stayed, knowing it would be their deaths.”
“Frank, are you sureâ”
“They're all dead, Kate. I used Delaney's telescope to make sure.”
Tears sprang into her eyes. She opened her mouth to say something but couldn't speak. Then she realized that she'd nothing to say that hadn't already been said.
“There will have to be a burying,” Frank said, “but I don't know how we can do that without risking other lives.”
Kate said, “Trace, I need your horse. Frank, let's ride out there. I want to see the wagons for myself.”
“I told you all there is to see, Kate,” Frank said. “And you can smell the place from a mile away. Maybe you should sit this one out.”
“Frank, the situation concerns the KK Ranch,” she said. “I want to go there. Trace, help me mount up.”
C
HAPTER
F
IFTY-TWO
Kate sat her horse, the ship's telescope unused in her hands. Her eyes were on the buzzards circling above the wagons with the silent patience of the caretakers of the dead. The smell of death tainted the morning air, that and the rotten-fish reek of cholera. She steeled herself and then scanned the wagons with the telescope.
It was a fine instrument, English made. Engraved on one side were the words,
Thos. Harris & Son. Opticians to the Royal Family. No. 57 Opposite the British Museum.
It was perfectly suited to a close study of the motionless corpses.
Faces . . . men, women, and children, cheeks and eye sockets shadowed, the eyes open, staring, but seeing nothing. The people had died where they fell . . . a long way from Nirvana.
Kate lowered the telescope, her cheeks pale. “Yes, I can see now that everyone is dead.”
“Not an easy thing to look at,” Frank said.
“Deaths like that never are. As a child in Ireland, I saw bodies of the people who starved to death during the Potato Famine. They looked like the people in the wagon circle, dead where they fell with the death shadows blue on their thin faces.” She looked into distance, her memories as vivid as the paintings in a Book of Hours. Taking her rosary from the pocket of her cotton day dress, she clutched it to her breast, its silver cross falling over the back of her hand. “Frank, we'll burn them. We'll set the wagons on fire and burn everything into ashes.” In a quieter tone, she added, “It's a terrible thing to do and may God forgive me.”
* * *
Everyone who could ride was given a horseâthe hands called in from the range, Barrie Delaney and his pirates, Trace, Quinn, Marco Salas the blacksmith, Frank, and Kate herself. A wagon was loaded with coal oil and whatever else would ignite. Around the wagon circle there was mesquite and sagebrush that would burn hot with thick black smoke and would help purify the air.
Despite his protests Moses Rice was to be left behind to take care of the girls. “But Miz Kerrigan, I seen the cholera before,” he said.
“Mose, you're the only one I trust to stay behind with my daughters and keep an eye on things,” Kate said. “God willing, Mr. Lowery will be up and about soon but for now, he must remain in bed, and Jazmin has other duties to attend to.”
“But Miz Kerriganâ”
“Please don't add to my woes right now, Mose. I need you right here.”
Bowing to the inevitable, Moses said, “I'll do as you say . . . but under protest, mind.”
She smiled. “Duly noted, Mr. Rice.”
* * *
Kate split her forces into good riders and bad.
Led by Frank, the best ridersâKK hands, Trace, and Quinnâwere given the job of trotting around the wagon circle throwing coal oil onto the canvas covers. Frank also included Barrie Delaney, who had begun his piratical career in Ireland as a highwayman on the old coast road between Lame and Ballycastle and rode like a Comanche. The other pirates, men who could sit a horse but were not horsemen, were tasked with building a mesquite fire to light the torches.
Kate sat her horse and said to her assembled riders, “Don't stop for anything. I don't know how many ways cholera can spread, so throw the coal oil on the canvases as you pass and then get out of there. Trace, Quinn, the rest of you, do you understand?”
“Sure do, Mrs. Kerrigan,” one of the hands said. “I got no intention of stopping to take in the scenery.”
“I hope the rest of you feel the same way,” Kate said.
Frank grinned. “I guess you can depend on that, Kate.”
“The fire is lit, so let's get it done,” she said. “I'll ride down with you.”
“Kate, you can see just fine from where you're at,” Frank hefted his jug of coal oil. “The rest of us will get it done.”
“Truer words were never spoke, Kate me darlin',” Delaney said. “When there's dirty work afoot, leave it to the menfolk, I always say.”
With considerable trepidation Kate watched the men ride away. Surely if they kept their distance and didn't stop, they'd be safe. She found her rosary again and held it tight.
* * *
The riders did stop. After a few tries, they discovered that they couldn't efficiently toss the coal oil from jugs without drawing rein and standing in the stirrups. Kate was on edge, her nerves frayed. In how much danger were her men? She had no way of knowing and that made her unease grow.
Soon the tinder-dry wagons were fired and the circle blazed like a gigantic Catherine wheel. Thick columns of black smoke rose into the air from the mesquite and sage that had been added to the blaze.
Kate sat her horse with the others and for a while they watched the conflagration. Finally she said to Frank, “We'll let the fire burn itself out and then come back to bury the ashes of the dead.”
Frank nodded. “Not even cholera could survive that blaze.”
“I certainly hope not. We're fighting an enemy we can't see and it frightens me.”
Frank smiled. “You frightened, Kate? I find that hard to believe.”
“Believe it, Frank. Confront me with an enemy I can see and identify and I'll fight tooth and nail, but disease ... well, I'm at a loss.”
“I bet a lot of doctors have said that very thing.”
After one lingering look at the circle of fire Kate said to the men around her, “We'll head back to the ranch. I'm sure Jazmin has coffee in the pot and there's whiskey for them that want it.”
That drew a cheer from all hands.
Kate smiled and added, “And that includes myself.”
“Hey, look at that, me hearties.”
All eyes turned to the pirate who'd spoken, a gray-haired, taciturn man known only to Kate as Jolly Jakes. She doubted that was his real name.
“Where away?” Delaney said.
Jakes pointed. “Over there, Cap'n, among the mesquite by the dead tree. See it? It looks like a younker.”
Kate put the telescope to her eye. “I don't see anything. Maybe it was an animal.”
“Damn your eyes, Jolly,” Delaney said. “Have you been at the rum again and seeing things?”
Jakes shook his hoary head. “It's there, Cap'n, among the mesquite. I swear to God I saw a white child moving around.”
“There's one way to find out.” Trace kicked his horse into a gallop and headed for the dead wild oak.
Through the telescope Kate watched her son dismount and walk into the mesquite thicket. He emerged a few moments later carrying a struggling, kicking child by the armpits. Grinning, Trace lifted the kid into the saddle and got up behind him. When he returned to the others, he lowered the squalling child to the ground and said above the din, “He's a boy and this was pinned to his . . . whatever the hell it is he's wearing.”
Kate was too taken aback to chide Trace for swearing. She took the paper and studied it. “The writing is very small.” She reached into the pocket of her riding skirt, opened a small tortoiseshell case, and removed a pair of pince-nez spectacles. She settled the glasses on her nose and read aloud,
“My name is Peter Letting and I'm three years old. My ma took me from the wagons because I don't have the cholera. Everyone else is dead and she died holding hands with my pa. If I am found alive please take care of me. If I am dead bury me as a Christian.”
Kate removed her steamed up glasses. “It's not signed.”
Frank said, “Give me the paper,” Kate.”
Kate handed it over. Frank thumbed a match into flame and when the paper was burning well he dropped it to the ground. “Let me have your hands, Kate.” He removed his canteen from the saddle horn and poured water over Kate's hands and then his own. “I don't know if that was needed, but we can't take chances.” Nodding in the direction of the boy, he said, “What about him?”
“He's got a locket around his neck.” She stepped out of the saddle and kneeled beside the boy. He stopped crying as soon as she put her arms around him and hugged him close.
“Kate, should you be doing that?” Frank said.
She looked at him. “He's a frightened child who may have been wandering around for days. He's hungry, thirsty, and dirty, and he needs affection. Let me have your canteen, Frank.”
He hesitated. “He may have gone back to the wagons. Have you thought about that?”
“Yes, I have, and that's a chance I'll have to take.” Kate said. “Would you have me abandon him out here? I'm surprised he's still alive. This boy is a survivor. I can see it in his eyes. He's brave, Frank, very brave.”
“By the way he caterwauls, you could have fooled me.” Frank dismounted and passed Kate his canteen. The child drank deeply and she took the opportunity to open the locket on the silver chain around the boy's neck. She answered the question on Frank's face. “A young man and woman. They must have been his parents.”
Frank glanced at the open locket. A bearded man and a dark-haired woman, the man unhandsome, the woman plain. Two ordinary people who died in terrible circumstances. “Well, get that dirty shift off him and we'll take him back to the ranch and feed him.”
“His name is Peter,” Kate said.
Frank nodded. “Then Pete it is.”