Kate Wingo - Western Fire 01 (2 page)

Eastern Kansas

February, 1865

“If you mean to kill me, girl, you best get to it. I don’t have all day.”

Tightening her grip on the ax handle, the flaxen-haired woman glared at the mounted horseman.

While Mercy Hibbert disliked the mocking tone in the stranger’s voice, she disliked his slow southern drawl even more. Of course, being a Southerner didn’t necessarily mean the man was a Missouri bushwhacker
. Although she wasn’t about to take a chance.

A tow-colored head peered around her shoulder. “Do you want me to run for help, Mercy?”

Casting an anxious glance through the grove of trees at their hitched buckboard wagon, Mercy shooed her fourteen-year-old sister Prudence behind her.

If this man
was
a Missouri bushwhacker, it meant that he was a renegade, disowned by the Confederacy and vilified by the Union. Armed bandits, such men swore allegiance to no cause save that which lined their pockets. And if a dollar could be had, that was reason enough for a bushwhacker to kill in cold blood. Since leaving Massachusetts nine years ago, she and her family had had their share of run-ins with such ruffians. And not without tragic consequence.

The rider slung his carbine rifle over a crooked arm. “Is that your name, girl? Mercy?”

“Can’t you see she isn’t a ‘girl’?” Prudence retorted impudently. “Why, she’s had her bosoms for at least six years now.”

“Well, from where I’m sitting she looks like an itty
-bitty little thing. Can’t be more than sixteen hands high. And with those big blue eyes she looks like a china doll that I once saw in a store window.”

At hearing their verbal exchange, Mercy inwardly cringed, wishing
that her sister would more astutely practice the virtue for which she’d been named. To her further chagrin, the man actually had the gall to leer at her, his gaze momentarily lingering on her heaving breasts.

“Yeah, just an itty
-bitty little thing,” he drawled, raising a hand to push back the brim of his hat. As he did so, Mercy caught a glimpse of the most unfathomable, amber-colored eyes she’d ever seen. “And to think you actually had me scared there for a minute.”

“You would be well advised not to provoke me into using this ax.” Tightening her grip on the ax handle, Mercy affected what she hoped was a menacing pose. Then, as an afterthought,
she said, “I sharpened the blade only this morning.”

“Maybe you should put
down that ax before one of us gets hurt. I mean you no harm.”

Mercy kept silent. Until she could ascertain whether the stranger’s intentions were hostile or not, she refused to be lured into converse with him. The fact that he
had sneaked up on her and Prudence while they were gathering firewood was reason enough to question his motives.

Somewhere in the wooded grove, a twig snapped
. Though the change in his posture was so subtle as to go unnoticed, Mercy detected a predatory alertness about the stranger, his finger suddenly poised over the carbine’s trigger.

“I’m no fool, sir! I know a prairie wolf when I see one.”

“Now is that any way to speak to a man you’ve only just met? If anyone’s the fool, it’s me. I only stopped to ask directions, and look how you treat me.”

“Directions?” Suspicious, Mercy eyed the armed horseman. “
Do you mean to say that you’re lost?”

“That’s right. I’m looking for the northbound road to Leavenworth.”

“What business do you have in Leavenworth?”

“Mule driving on the Santa Fe Trail,” he replied, nothing in
the man’s voice indicating that he spoke anything but the truth. “I’m one of the best bullwhackers this side of the Mississippi.”

“And a modest one, at that.”

At hearing her tart reply, one corner of the stranger’s mouth briefly lifted. Although hardly a smile, it did make her think that he was mildly amused by her retort. Perhaps she’d misjudged him. After all, bullwhacking was a far cry from the more insidious profession of bushwhacking.

While she pondered her next move, the stranger, rifle gripped in one hand, swung down from his saddle. To Mercy’s consternation, he stepped toward them.

“Don’t come any closer!” Frightened, Mercy took a backward step, slamming against her sister. With nowhere to go, she held her position, ax at the ready.

Ignoring
the warning, the stranger yanked the ax from her clutches with one swift tug.

“I demand that you return tha
t ax to me this instant!” Mercy huffed, appalled that she’d been so easily disarmed.

Paying her no mind, the man slowly ran his thumb back and forth over the blade. “You weren’t
kidding about it being sharp.”

Sauntering
over to his mount, the stranger slid his rifle into a fringed scabbard that hung beneath the saddle. Then, with a true economy of motion, he removed his hat and corduroy jacket, unceremoniously tossing both items of clothing to the ground. As he began to loosen the gun belt around his waist, Mercy’s heart exploded with fear. Until that moment, it hadn’t occurred to her that he meant to defile their chastity.

“Please . . . I beg you . . . don’t
—” Unable to get the words out, Mercy turned toward her younger sister and silently mouthed the word ‘run.’ But instead of running, Prudence raised an arm and pointed, a stunned look on her freckled face.

Turning toward
their would-be ravisher, Mercy’s own jaw slackened as she watched the stranger proceed to chop away at the same felled cottonwood that she busily, albeit unsuccessfully, had been trying to cut into firewood before he happened upon them.

“Does this mean
that he’s not going to kill us?” Prudence whispered in her ear. Clearly, she, too, was dumbfounded by the stranger’s astonishing behavior.

“It would appear that he intends us no ill will,” Mercy replied in a hushed voice, having reasoned it unlikely for a man to do a good deed
and
commit foul play all in the same breadth. “I suggest we gather the kindling while Mister –” she paused, not having a clue as to the man’s name – “while this, um, gentleman busies himself chopping wood.”

“He seems quite . . .
virile
, don’t you think?”

Following her sister’s gaze, Mercy was forced to admit that the man was decidedly virile, his arms hefting the ax with muscular ease. Well over six feet in height with thick shoulder
-length brown hair and deeply tanned skin, he looked more like a knight of yore than a traveler who’d lost his way. Shamefaced, she turned away from the ax wielding Southerner, not usually given to ogling men.

“Come, Prude
nce. There’s work to be done.”

Unaccustomed to indolence, they scurried to gather armloads of twigs and branches
that they then deposited into their buckboard wagon. As the two sisters went about their task, they could hear the repetitive
thunk
of an ax blade hacking through wood.

When they returned to the felled cottonwood long minutes later, their eyes beheld a small stack of neatly split logs. Hesitantly, Mercy approached the stranger who stood beside the piled firewood, ax still in hand. Taking note of the manly sheen
that covered his face and neck, her cheeks heated with color.

“We’re most grateful for your kindness,” she said, studiously averting her gaze from his person. “These days not many men would come to the assistance of two lone females.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that. Particularly when the ladies in question are as lovely as you two,” he complimented, his glib response rubbing Mercy the wrong way.

“In fact, mister, if you hadn’t come along when you did, we’d have never gotten that cottonwood chopped,” Prudence piped in. “Mercy bit off more than she could chew wh
en she took on that old tree.”

“Your sister seems to do that a lot . . . bitin
g off more than she can chew.”

Infuriated, Mercy clenched her jaw, stifling a curt reply. There was something disconcerting about their Good Samaritan’s masculine conceit.

“By the way, my name is Prudence Hibbert,” her sister chirped, all smiles and freckled-faced innocence. “What’s your name?”

“Spencer McCabe
,” the stranger drawled, returning her smile with one of his own.

“Since we can not repay your labors with hard currency, you are welcome to sup with us,” Mercy offered
grudgingly, hoping the man would decline the invitation and be on his way.

“Thank you, Miss Hibbert. That’s mighty thoughtful of you.” Spence
r reached for his hat and jacket, brushing the dust from them. “Would there happen to be room at the table for one more mouth?”

Mercy
warily nodded, baffled when he proceeded to make a series of loud, bird-like noises. Moments later, a horseman trotted into the grove.

“This here is my brother,” Spence
r nonchalantly informed them. “He’s been keeping a lookout for me.”

“And what, may I ask, was he looking for?”

One side of Spencer McCabe’s mouth quirked upward. “I hear tell, Miss Hibbert, that there are some unsavory characters roaming these parts.”

“As well I know!” Mercy retorted, incensed to learn that all this time there’d been a second arme
d rider only a bird call away.

As the rider dismounted and stepped toward them, Mercy was surprised to see that he was a
mere boy, no more than a year or two older than Prudence. A fact that her sister quickly noted, as well.

“I’m Prudence Hibbert.
What might your name be?”

The dark-haired boy manfully straightened his back and shoulders
, adding a good two inches to his height. “Dewey McCabe,” he replied, his youthfulness betrayed by the crack in voice.

“I hope you like beef stew,” Prudence said cheerfully, a girlish blush on her cheeks. “Your brother tells us that the two of you are bound for Leavenworth
. Will you also be bullwhacking on the Santa Fe Trail?”

Mercy watched as Dewey glanced
furtively at his brother, no doubt taken aback by Pru’s starry-eyed litany. Prone to excitement, her younger sister had yet to master the art of feminine restraint. In the last six months alone, she’d fallen head over heels in love with nearly every boy in the county.

“There’ll be plenty of time later for such questions,” Mercy told her sister. “We need to be getting back before Mama
starts to worry.”

“Dewey, why don’t you fetch the ladies’ buckboard so we can load this firewood onto it.”

“Sure thing, Spence.”

Several minutes later, the four of them were making their way down a rutted country lane. Leading the pack, Mercy captained the wagon while their guests followed on horseback and Prudence tagged along on foot. Before them, the prairie spread in a rolling spectacle of green grass punctuated with an occasional cluster of trees. Out of habit, she scanned the eastern horizon toward the Kansas-Missouri border.
Like every other Kansas homesteader, she kept a vigilant watch, fearful that Missouri bushwhackers might slip across the border wreaking death and destruction.

Which is exactly what they’d done last year when the infamous Ned Sykes and his gang of rebels decided to pay a visit. Like the rider of the ‘pale horse’ in the Book of Revelation, they
’d swept through Kansas, their arrival heralded by the ominous pound of hooves and the deadly roar of pistols. The devil incarnate, ‘Bloody Ned’ had vehemently pledged to exterminate every male Kansan over the age of twelve. Such inflammatory rhetoric caused many a sleepless night amongst the citizens of Marion County, Kansas.

“Looks like your sister has staked herself a claim on young Dewey,” Spence
r remarked, reining his horse alongside the buckboard.

Casting a glance behind the wagon, Mercy could see that Prudence had finagled Dewey McCabe into walking beside her.

“Are you implying that Prudence has been unduly forward?”

“I believe
that you’re putting words into my mouth. Though speaking for myself, I happen to like forward women. In fact, you strike me as being more forward than most.”

Mer
cy’s head snapped in his direction. “I suggest, Mr. McCabe, that you change your tune posthaste. Such fast and easy talk is uncalled for.”

Spence threw up his hands in mock surrender. “I didn’t mean to cause offense. Believe me, the last thing I want to do is upset an ax
-toting lady such as yourself.”

“Humph!”

“You sure get your feathers ruffled easily, don’t you? I’m just trying to make polite conversation, that’s all.”

“Perhaps y
ou could try a little harder.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Spence McCabe watched his would
-be hostess with keen interest. Given the stubborn tilt of her chin and ramrod straight back, he figured the lady was fit to be tied.