The McKettrick Legend (19 page)

Doc Willaby was standing just inside the door, leaning on his cane, because of that gouty foot of his, and dressed for a long, hard ride out to the Triple M.

“You ought to tell Hannah,” the old man said.

“Tell her what?” Doss countered, abashed at being caught pouring out his heart like some repentant sinner at a revival.

“That you love her enough to die in place of her boy.”

Doss heard a team and wagon clatter to a stop out front. “Nobody needs to know that besides God,” he said, and
slammed his hat back on his head. “What are you doing here, anyhow? Besides eavesdropping on a man's private conversation?”

The doc smiled. He was heavy-set, with a face like a full moon, a scruff of beard and keen little eyes that never seemed to miss much of anything. “I'm going out to your place with you. And we'd better be on our way, if that boy's as sick as you say he is.”

“What about your nephew?”

“He'd never stand the trip,” Doc said. “My bag's out on the step, and I'll thank you to help me up into the wagon so we can get started.”

Doss felt a mixture of chagrin and relief. Doc Willaby was old as desert dirt, but he'd been tending McKettricks, and a lot of other folks, for as long as Doss could remember. His own health might be failing, but Doc knew his trade, all right.

“Come on, old man,” Doss said. “And don't be fussing over hard conditions along the way. I've got neither the time nor the inclination to be coddling you.”

Doc chuckled, though his eyes were serious. He slapped Doss on the shoulder. “Just like your grand father,” he said. “Tough as a boiled owl, with a heart the size of the whole state of Arizona and two others like it.”

Getting the old coot into the box of the hired wagon was like trying to hoist a cow from a tar pit, but Doss managed it. He climbed up, took the reins in one hand and tossed a coin to the livery stable boy, shivering on the sidewalk, with the other. Cain and Abel would be spending the night in warm stalls, maybe longer, with all the hay they required and some grain to boot, and, cussed as they were, Doss was glad for them.

He and the doc were almost to the ranch house when the lightning struck, loud enough to shake snow off the
branches of trees, throwing the dark country side into clear relief.

The horses screamed and shied.

The wagon slid on the icy trail and plunged on to its side.

Doss heard the doc yell, felt himself being thrown sky high.

Just before he hit the ground, it came to him that God had taken him up on the bargain he'd offered back there in Indian Rock at the church. He was about to die, but Tobias would be spared.

 

Someone was pounding at the back door.

Hannah muttered a hasty word of reassurance to Tobias, who sat up in bed, wide-eyed, at the sound.

“That can't be Pa,” he said. “He wouldn't knock. He'd just come inside—”

“Hush,” Hannah told him. “You stay right there in that bed.”

She hurried down the stairs and was shocked to see old Doc Willaby limping over the threshold. He looked a sight, his clothes wet and disheveled, his hair wild around his head, without his hat to contain it. His skin was gray with exertion, and he seemed nigh on to collapsing.

“There was an accident,” he finally sputtered. “Down yonder, at the base of the hill. Doss is hurt.”

Hannah steered the old man to a chair at the table. “Are you all right?” she asked breathlessly.

The doctor considered the question briefly, then nodded. “Don't mind about me, Hannah. It's Doss—I couldn't wake him—I had to turn the horses loose so they wouldn't kick each other to death.”

She hurried into the pantry, moved the cracker tin aside and took down the bottle of Christmas whisky Doss kept there. She offered it to Doc Willaby, and he gulped
down a couple of grateful swigs while she pulled on Gabe's coat and grabbed for a lantern.

“You'd better take this along, too,” Doc said, and shoved the whisky bottle at her.

Hannah dropped it into her coat pocket. She didn't like leaving the old man
or
Tobias alone, but she had to get to Doss.

She raised her collar against the bitter wind and threw her self out the back door. Out in the barn, she tossed a halter on Seesaw and stood on a wheel bar row to mount him. There was no time for saddles and bridles.

Holding the lamp high in one hand and clutching the halter rope with the other, Hannah rode out. She soon met two of the horses Doc had freed, and followed their trail back ward, until the shape of an over turned wagon loomed in the snowy darkness.

“Doss!” she cried out. The name scraped at her throat, and she realized she must have called it over and over again, not just the once.

She found him sprawled facedown in the snow, at some distance from the wagon, and feared he'd smothered, if not broken every bone in his body. Scrambling off Seesaw's back, she plodded to where he lay, utterly still.

She knelt, setting the lantern aside, and turned him over.

“Doss,” she whispered.

He didn't move.

Hannah put her cheek down close to his mouth. Felt his breath, his blessed breath, warm against her skin.

Tears of relief sprang to her eyes. She dashed them away quickly, lest they freeze in her lashes.

“Doss!” she repeated.

He opened his eyes.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, sounding be fuddled.

“I've come looking for you, you damn fool,” she answered.

“You're not dead, are you?”

“Of course I'm not dead,” Hannah retorted, weeping freely. “And you're not either, which is God's own wonder, the way you must have been driving that wagon to get yourself into a fix like this. Can you move?”

Doss blinked. Hoisted himself on to his elbows. Felt around for his hat.

“Where's the doc?” His features tightened. “Tobias—”

“Tobias is fine,” she said. “And Doc's up at the house, thawing out. It's a miracle he made it that far, with that foot of his.”

A grin broke over Doss's face, and Hannah, filled with joy, could have slapped him for it. Didn't he know he'd nearly killed himself? Nearly fixed it so she'd have to bear and raise their baby all alone?

“I reckon Doc was right,” Doss said. “I ought to tell you—”

“Tell me what?” Hannah fretted. “It's getting colder out here by the minute, and the wind's picking up, too. Can you get to your feet? Poor old Seesaw's going to have to carry us both home, but I think he can manage it.”

“Hannah.” Doss clasped both her shoulders in his hands, gave her just the slightest shake. “I love you.”

Hannah blinked, stunned. “You're talking crazy, Doss. You're out of your head—”

“I love you,”
he said. He got to his feet, hauling Hannah with him. Knocked the lantern over in the process so it went out. “It started the day I met you.”

She stared up at him.

“I don't know how you feel about me, Hannah. It would be a grand thing if you felt the same way I do, but if you don't, maybe you can learn.”

“I don't have to learn,” she heard herself say. “I came
out into this wretched snow storm to find you, didn't I? After I suffered the tortures of the damned wondering what was keeping you. Of
course
I love you!”

He kissed her, an exultant kiss that warmed her to her toes.

“I'm going to be a real husband to you from now on,” he told her. He made a stirrup of his hands, and Hannah stepped into them, landed astraddle Seesaw's broad, patient old back.

Doss swung up behind her, reached around to catch hold of the halter rope. “Let's go home,” he said, close to her ear.

Hannah forgot all about the whisky in her coat pocket.

It was stone dark out, but the lights of the house were visible in the distance, even through the flurries of snow.

Anyway, Seesaw knew his way home, and he plodded patiently in that direction.

Present Day

The world was frozen solid when Sierra awakened the next morning, to find herself clinging to the edge of Liam's empty bed. Voices wafted up from down stairs, along with heat from the furnace and probably the wood stove, too.

She scram bled out of bed, finger combed her hair and hurried down the hallway.

Travis said something, and Liam laughed aloud. The sound affected Sierra like an injection of sunshine. Then a third voice chimed in, clearly female.

Sierra quickened her pace, her bare feet thumping on the stairs as she descended them.

Travis and Liam were seated at the table, reading the
comic strips in the newspaper. A slender blond woman wearing jeans and a pink thermal shirt with the sleeves pushed up stood by the counter, sipping coffee.

“Meg?” Sierra asked. She'd seen her sister's picture, but nothing had prepared her for the living woman. Her clear skin seemed to glow, and her smile was a force of nature.

“Hello, Sierra,” she said. “I hope you don't mind my showing up unannounced, but I just couldn't wait any longer, so here I am.”

Travis stood, put a hand on Liam's shoulder. Without a word, the two of them left the room, probably headed for the study.

“Everything Mom said was true,” Meg told Sierra quietly. “You're beautiful, and so is Liam.”

Sierra couldn't speak, at least for the moment, even though her mind was full of questions, all of them clamoring to be offered at once.

“Maybe you should sit down,” Meg said. “You look as though you might faint dead away.”

Sierra pulled back the chair at the head of the table and sank into it. “When…when did you get here?” she asked.

“Last night,” Meg answered. She poured a fresh cup of coffee, brought it to Sierra. “I hope I'm not interrupting anything.”

“Interrupting anything?”

Meg's enormous blue eyes took on a mischievous glint. She swung a leg over the bench and straddled it, as several generations of McKettricks must have done before her, facing Sierra.

“Something's going on between you and Travis,” Meg said. “I can feel it.”

Sierra wondered if she could carry off a lie and decided not to try. She and Meg had been apart since they were
small children, but they were sisters, and there was a bond. Besides, she didn't want to start off on the wrong foot.

“The question is,” she said care fully, “is anything going on between
you
and Travis.”

“No,” Meg answered, “more's the pity. We tried to fall in love. It just didn't happen.”

“I'm not talking about falling in love.”

Wasn't she? Travis had rocked her universe, and much as she would have liked to believe it was only physical, she knew it was more. She'd never felt anything like that with Adam, and she
had
been in love with him, however naively. However foolishly.

Meg grinned. “You mean sex? We didn't even get that far. Every time we tried to kiss, we ended up laughing too hard to do anything else.”

Sierra marveled at the crazy relief she felt.

“Too bad he's leaving,” Meg said. “Now we'll have to find some body else to look after the horses, and it won't be easy.”

The bottom fell out of Sierra's stomach.

“Travis is leaving?”

Meg set her coffee cup down with a thump and reached for Sierra's hand. “Oh, my God. You didn't know?”

“I didn't know,” Sierra admitted.

Damned if she'd cry.

Who needed Travis Reid, anyway?

She had Liam. She had a family and a home and a two-million-dollar trust fund.

She'd gotten along without Travis, and his lovemaking, all her life. The man was entirely superfluous.

So why did she want to lay her head down on her arms and wail with sorrow?

1919

C
OME MORNING
H
ANNAH
made her way through the still, chilly dawn to the barn. Besides their own stock, four livery horses were there, gathered at the back of the barn, helping themselves to the haystack. Remnants of harness hung from their backs.

Hannah smiled, led each one into a stall, saw that they each got a bucket of water and some grain. She was milking old Earleen, the cow, when Doss joined her, stiff and bruised but otherwise none the worse for his trials, as far as Hannah could see.

They'd shared a bed the night before, but they'd both been too exhausted, after the rigors of the day and getting Doc Willaby settled comfortably in the spare room, to make love.

“You ought to go into the house, Hannah,” Doss said, sounding both confounded and stern. “This work is mine to do.”

“Fine,” she said, still milking. There was a rhythm in the task that settled a person's thoughts. “You can gather the eggs and get some butter from the spring house. I reckon Doc will be in the grip of a powerful hunger when he wakes up. He'll want hotcakes and some of that bacon you brought from the smoke house.”

Doss moved along the middle of the barn, limping a little. Stopping to peer into each stall along the way. Hannah watched his progress out of the corner of her eye, smiling to herself.

“I meant what I said last night, Hannah,” he said, when he finally reached her. “I love you. But if you really want to go back to your folks in Montana, I won't interfere. I know it's hard, living out here on this ranch.”

Hannah's throat ached with love and hope. “It
is
hard, Doss McKettrick, and I wouldn't mind spending winters in town. But I'm not going to Montana unless you go, too.”

He leaned against one of the beams supporting the barn roof, pondering her with an unreadable expression. “Gabe knew,” he said.

She stopped milking. “Gabe knew what?”

“How I felt about you. From the very first time I saw you, I loved you. He guessed right away, without my saying a word. And do you know what he told me?”

“I can't imagine,” Hannah said, very softly.

“That I oughtn't to feel bad, because you were easy to love.”

Tears stung Hannah's eyes. “He was a good man.”

“He was,” Doss agreed gruffly, and gave a short nod. “He asked me to look after you and Tobias, before he died. Maybe he figured, even then, that you and I would end up together.”

“It wouldn't surprise me,” Hannah replied. Dear, dear Gabe. She'd loved him so, but he'd gone on, and he'd want her to carry on and be as happy as she could. Tobias, too.

“What I mean to say is,” Doss went on, taking off his hat and turning it round and round in his hands by the
brim, “I understand what he meant to you. You can say it, straight out, anytime. I won't be jealous.”

Hannah stood up so fast she spooked Earleen, who kicked over the milk bucket, three-quarters of the way full now, steaming in the cold and rich with cream. She put her arms around Doss and didn't try to hide her tears.

“You're as good a man as Gabe ever was, Doss McKettrick,” she said, “and I won't let you forget it.”

He grinned down at her, wanly, but with that familiar spark in his eyes. “I'll build you a house in town, Hannah,” he said. “We'll spend winters there, so you can see folks and Tobias can go to school without riding two miles through the snow. Would you like that?”

“Yes,” Hannah said. “But I'd stay on this ranch forever, too, if it meant I could be with you.”

Doss bent his head. Kissed her. His hands rested lightly on the sides of her waist, beneath the heavy fabric of Gabe's coat.

“You go inside and see to break fast, Mrs. McKettrick. I'll finish up out here.”

She swallowed, nodded. “I love you, Mr. McKettrick,” she said.

His eyes danced mischievously. “Once we get Doc back to town,” he replied, “I mean to bed you, good and proper.”

Hannah blushed. Batted her lashes. “When is he leaving?”

Present Day

Travis was packing, loading things into his truck. Even whistling as he went about it. Meg got into her Blazer and drove off some where.

Sierra waited as long as she could bear to—she didn't know how she was going to explain this to Liam, who was sleeping off his flu bug—didn't know how to explain it herself.

She got out the album, for something to do, and set the remembrance book aside without opening it. Even after seeing Hannah and Tobias the night before, in Liam's room, she just didn't believe in magic any more.

So she took a seat at the table and lifted the cover of the album.

A cracked and yellowed photograph, done in sepia, filled most of the page. Angus McKettrick, the patriarch of the family, stared calmly up at her. He'd been handsome in his youth; she could see that. Though, in the picture his thick hair was white, his stern, square-jawed face etched with lines of sorrow as well as joy. His eyes were clear, intelligent and full of stubborn humor.

It was almost as though he'd known Sierra would be looking at the photo one day, searching for some part of herself in those craggy features, and crooked up one corner of his mouth in the faintest smile, just for her.

Be strong,
he seemed to say.
Be a McKettrick.

Sierra sat for a long time, silently communing with the image.

I don't know how to “be a McKettrick.” What does that mean, anyway?

Angus's answer was in his eyes. Being a McKettrick meant claiming a piece of ground to stand on and putting your roots down deep into it. Holding on, no matter what came at you. It meant loving with passion and taking the rough spots with the smooth. It meant fighting for what you wanted, letting go when that was the best thing to do.

Sierra absorbed all that and turned to the next page.

A good-looking couple posed in the front yard of the
very house where Sierra sat, so many years later. A small boy and a girl in her teens stood proudly on either side of them, and underneath someone had written the names in care fully. Holt McKettrick. Lorelei McKettrick. John Henry McKettrick. Lizzie McKettrick.

They wore the name like a badge, all of them.

After that came more pictures of Holt and Lorelei together and separately. In one, they were each holding the hand of a laughing, golden-haired toddler.

Gabriel Angus McKettrick, stated a fading caption beneath.

On the facing page, Lorelei sat proud and straight in a chair, holding an infant. Young Gabriel, older now, stood with a hand on her thigh, his ankles crossed, with the toe of one old-fashioned shoe touching the floor. Holt flanked them all, one hand resting on Lorelei's shoulder. The baby, according to the inscription, was Doss Jacob McKettrick.

Sierra continued to turn pages, and moved through the lives of Gabe and Doss along with them, or so it seemed, catching a glimpse of them on important dates. Birth days. School. Mounted on ponies. Fishing in a pond.

Sierra felt as though she were looking not at mere photo graphs, but through little sepia-stained windows into another time, a time as vivid and real as her own.

She watched Gabe and Doss McKettrick grow into young men, both of them blond, both of them handsome and sturdy.

At last she came to the wedding picture. Her gaze landed on Hannah, standing proudly beside Gabe. She was wearing a lovely white dress, holding a nosegay.

Hannah.

The woman with whom, in some inexplicable way, she shared this house. The woman she had seen in Liam's bed
room the night before, caring for her own sick child even as Sierra was caring for hers.

Sierra could go no further. Not then.

She closed the album care fully. “Mom?”

She turned, looked around to see Liam standing at the foot of the stairs, in his flannel pajamas. His hair was rumpled, his glasses were askew, and he looked desperately worried.

“Hey, buddy,” she said.

“Travis is putting stuff in his truck,” he told her. “Like he's going away or something.”

Sierra's heart broke into two pieces. She got up, went to him. “I guess he was just here temporarily, to look after your aunt Meg's horses.”

Liam blinked. A tear slipped down his cheek. “He can't go,” he said plaintively. “Who'll make the furnace work? Who'll get us to the clinic if I get sick?”

“I can do those things, Liam,” Sierra said. She offered a weak smile, and Liam looked skeptical. “Okay, maybe not the furnace. But I know how to get a fire going in the wood stove. And I can handle the rest, too.”

Liam's lower lip wobbled. “I thought…maybe—”

Sierra hugged him, hard. She wanted to cry herself, but not in front of Liam. Not when his heart was breaking, just like hers. One of them had to be strong, and she was elected.

She was an adult.

She was a McKettrick.

Before she could think of anything to say, the back door opened and suddenly Travis was there. He looked at her briefly, but then his gaze went straight to Liam's face.

“If you came to say goodbye,” Liam blurted out, “then
don't! I don't care if you're leaving—
I don't care!”
With that, he turned and fled up the stairs.

“That went well,” Travis said, taking off his hat and hanging it on the peg. He didn't take his coat off, though, which meant he really
was
going away. Sierra had known that—and, at the same time, she
hadn't
known it. Not until she was faced with the reality.

“He's attached to you,” she said evenly. “But he'll be all right.”

Travis studied her so closely that for a moment she thought he was going to refute her words. “I know this all seems pretty sudden,” he began.

Sierra kept her distance, glad she wasn't standing too close to him. “It's your life, Travis. You've done a lot to help us, and we're grateful.”

Upstairs, something crashed to the floor.

Sierra closed her eyes.

“I'd better go up and talk to him,” Travis said.

“No,” Sierra replied. “Leave him alone. Please.”

Another crash.

She found Liam's backpack, unzipped it and took out the in haler. “I've got to get him calmed down,” she said quietly. “Thanks for…everything. And goodbye.”

“Sierra…”

“Goodbye, Travis.”

With that, she turned and went up the stairs.

Liam had destroyed his new telescope and his DVD player. He was standing in the middle of the wreckage, trembling with the helplessness of a child in a world run by adults, his face flushed and wet with tears.

Sierra picked up his shoes, made her way to him. “Put these on, buddy,” she said gently, crouching to help. “You'll cut your feet if you don't.”

“Is he—” Liam gulped down a sob “—gone?”

“I think so,” Sierra said.

“Why?” Liam wailed, putting a hand on her shoulder to keep from falling while he jammed one foot into a shoe, then the other. “Why does he have to go?”

Sierra sighed. “I don't know, honey,” she answered.

“Make him stay!”

“I can't, Liam.”

“Yes, you can! You just don't want to! You don't
want
me to have a dad!”

“Liam, that is enough.” Sierra stood, handed him the inhaler. “Breathe,” she ordered.

He obeyed, puffing on the inhaler between intermittent, heart breaking sobs. “Make him stay,” he pleaded.

She squired him to the bed, pulled his shoes off again, tucked him in. “Liam,” she said.

Outside, the truck door slammed. The engine started up.

And suddenly Sierra was moving.

She ran down the stairs, through the kitchen, and wrenched open the back door. Coatless, shivering, she dashed across the yard toward Travis's truck.

He was backing out, but when he saw her, he stopped. Rolled down the window.

She jumped on to the running board, her fingers curved around the glass.
“Wait,”
she said, and then she felt stupid be cause she didn't know what to say after that.

Travis eased the door open, and she was forced to step back down on to the ground. Unbuttoning his coat as he got out, he wrapped it around her. But he didn't say anything at all. He just stood there, staring at her.

She huddled inside his coat. It smelled like him, and she wished she could keep it forever. “I thought it meant something,” she finally murmured. “When we made love, I mean. I thought it
meant something.
”

He cupped a gloved hand under her chin. “Believe me,” he said gruffly, “it did.”

“Then why are you leaving?”

“Because there didn't seem to be anything else to do. You were busy with Liam, and you'd made it pretty clear we had nothing to talk about.”

“We have
plenty
to talk about, Travis Reid. I'm not some…some rodeo groupie you can just have sex with and forget!”

“You can say that again,” Travis agreed, smiling a little. “Do you mind if we go inside to have this conversation? It's colder than a well-digger's ass out here, and I'm not wearing a coat.”

Sierra turned on her heel and marched toward the house, and Travis followed.

She tried not to think about all the things that might mean.

Inside she gestured toward the table, took off Travis's coat and started a pot of coffee brewing, so she'd have a chance to think up something to say.

Travis stepped up behind her. Laid his hands on her shoulders.

“Sierra,” he said. “Stop fiddling with the coffeemaker and talk to me.”

She turned, looked up into his eyes. “It's not like I was expecting marriage or anything,” she said, whispering. Liam was probably crouched at the top of the stairs by then, listening. “We're adults. We had…we're adults. But the least you could have done, after all that's gone on, was give us a little notice—”