The Raging Hearts: The Coltrane Saga, Book 2 (50 page)

“Good. I see in your eyes that you realize you have no other choice except to bend to my will.” He nodded his approval. “Now, you get up and tend to your needs, and I’ll get you a lovely robe, so that when Hugo brings in your supper tray you will be all right.”

She did not move. “When may I see my baby to know he is all right?”

He sucked in his lower lip, studied her between narrowed lids. After several moments of silence, he said, “Tomorrow. I can understand your anxiety. So, if you behave yourself tonight and show me pleasure, I promise you that tomorrow I will have your son brought in to you for a short while. You can see for yourself that he is being well cared for. And, if you continue to cooperate, you will see him again soon.”

He touched her cheek with his fingertips, and this time she did not flinch in revulsion. “You’re an intelligent woman, Kitty. Foolish, yes, but you do have superior intelligence. I feel quite confident that you are going to come around.”

He stepped away, toward the wardrobe closet. Kitty was about to step from the bed, the quilt still wrapped about her, when the air was split with the sound of gunfire.

“What the hell.” Corey twisted away from the closet, sprang to the drapes and flung them open. “That’s here! On my land.”

He was almost to the door when someone began pounding on it. “Mr. McRae, you better come quick.” That was Hugo’s frightened, anxious voice. “There’s trouble, big trouble.”

Corey flung the door open, and the Negro stood there in the illuminated hall, eyes milky white and bulging with terror. They could still hear guns firing steadily, and now and then the anguished screams of men hit.

“It’s Danton’s men. Bound to be,” Hugo was saying. “Rance and the others haven’t had time to leave. They must have been waiting.”

Kitty was forgotten as Corey ran from the room, yelling at Hugo to get his guns, round up the servants, anyone who could shoot. “What in the hell went wrong?” He was cursing as his voice disappeared down the stairway along with their thundering footsteps.

Kitty leaped from the bed, flinging open the doors to the closet. A robe hung-there, and she grabbed it, pulling it on her trembling body. Then she fled from the room, plunging down the hall, hands sliding along the railing as her feet moved rapidly down the stairs to the second floor. She ran all the way to the nursery and pushed the door open, only to scream at the sight of the empty cradle. John was not there!

Up and down the hall she ran, from room to room. Where was everyone? Where in God’s name was her son?

The gunfire was getting closer. Hysteria bubbling in her throat, she covered her hands with her ears and stood in the middle of the wide hallway, rocking to and fro, trying to think. Where could Corey have sent the baby? Where would he be? She did not know what was going on outside, but with so many guns firing, she had to make sure John was safe.

A window shattered. Then another. Men were shouting. Hoofbeats thundered by. Someone screamed in agony. Another window shattering, this time in the nursery! Dear God, she had to find John!

She made her way to the first floor where she ran into the parlor to find the brocade sofa in flames. A lantern had been hit by gunfire, spilling onto the fabric. Grabbing a small rug, she began to beat at the hungry fire hysterically. Let the house burn later. Later, she would thrill to see it in rubble and ashes, but not now, not when she could not find her baby. He was here somewhere, he had to be. If Corey had taken him away to Raleigh again, he would have told her.

The front door crashed open, and she whirled toward the entrance foyer to see Jerome Danton towering there, face flushed with anger and eyes gleaming murderously. He was pointing a gun at her, but she did not tremble.

“Where is he?” Jerome snarled. “Where’s McRae?”

Several more of his men ran in behind him and were told to search the house.

“Please, don’t harm my baby,” Kitty cried. “I had nothing to do with any of Corey’s plans. You must believe me. But he’s hidden my baby. That’s all I care about. I promise you, Jerome, I don’t know where Corey went. He and Hugo ran out awhile ago, with guns. Just don’t harm my son, please.”

“Beating up on kids is Corey’s way, Kitty, not mine. I believe you. And if my men find your baby, I promise you he won’t be harmed. But do you know what your husband did tonight? Do you know?” His voice rose to a scream.

“Yes, I know!” she screamed back at him, suddenly coming out of her stupor to be angry. Gone was the fear, and in its place, the fighting spirit that always shone through any crisis. “I know, because I overheard him talking to Rance Kincaid about the murder of your man Dawson, the plot to attack Mattie Glass and beat up her sons—all of it. But I could do nothing! Do you understand me? I was
shackled
! And now God only knows where my baby is.”

She fought the impulse to cry, to sink beneath that giant invisible web that would smother her like some enormous spider’s nest. No, this was not the time to wilt. This was the time to fight back.

They stood facing each other, eyes locked in a gaze that questioned whether the other could be trusted. Finally Jerome spoke. “All right, Kitty, I believe you. I think I’ve believed you all along. I’ll try to help you find your baby, but I warn you, I came here to end this feud. Those idiot gunmen of his didn’t capture Frank’s horse. He came back to his corral, and there was blood on the saddle. We rode back the way we figure he’d come, and we found more blood. It didn’t take much more figuring to know Corey was behind it all. Now I know why. He wanted to get Mattie Glass so scared she’d sell him her damned land, and this time he’d make me and the boys look responsible for sure, by leaving Frank behind dead.”

“Exactly! Now, are we going to stand here talking about it, or are you going to find my baby?”

“Kitty, I have no idea where your baby is. The thing I need to do right now is find Corey. You stay here. Take cover, because there’s going to be more shooting. When it’s over, I’ll help you. I promise. Now do as I say.”

“You expect me to just sit here and wait?”

Just then another window exploded, and they both fell to the floor.

“Yes, I do,” he said with strange calmness. “Unless you want your head blown off. Now there’s a lot of places out there where Corey and his men can be holed up. Anything can happen. So you just creep around and put out all the lanterns so there won’t be more danger of fires.” He looked at the scorched sofa, then crawled on his hands and knees to put out the last remaining lantern in the room. Except for the softly glowing chandelier in the entrance foyer, they were in darkness.

“Jerome?” a voice Kitty did not recognize called out from the hallway. “We’ve looked all through this house and we ain’t found nothing. Let’s go.”

“Put out those lights in the hall,” Jerome snapped. “I don’t want to be a perfect target for those bastards. No telling where they are.”

He moved his feet, stealthily as a stalking cat. His man did as he was told, and they were surrounded by the dark. Kitty could barely hear their feet moving across the polished mahogany floors. Then she was alone.

For long moments, she crouched in the darkness. Where was John? In one of the old slave cabins out back? Had Corey had him taken there so she would not hear him crying for her?

Each time gunfire split the air, she covered her ears and gritted her teeth to keep from screaming. It was like the war all over again. The cries, the thuds of falling bodies, the smell of sulphur. There, staring into the void about her, she could see the battlefields again. The nightmare was returning.

Dear God, in all of this, where was her baby?

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Travis sat in his room alone. By the light whispering through the open window he could see the bottle in his hand. Lifting it slowly to his lips, he took a long swallow. Damn the burning. The warmth was what counted—that sweet, sedating heat that spread through his body. It took away his pain.

To think that Kitty Wright could love him was ridiculous. She had used him. But in the back of his mind was the nagging question that even the burning whiskey could not dull.
Why
was she trying to pass her son off as his? Corey was rich and powerful. What did Kitty think she could gain?

Damn it, he would never get over her. Never. And if he didn’t need those last few drinks left in the bottle, he would send it crashing against the wall. He’d done that a lot lately. Made a lot of messes and wasted plenty of good booze, too. No, this time he would finish the whiskey. Then he could send it smashing against the wall.

Sam Bucher did not bother to knock. He opened the door so swiftly that it banged back against the wall, and he found himself looking down the barrel of the gun Travis was pointing at him.

“You’re damn lucky there’s a lantern in that hall, or you’d be dead by now,” Travis said in a slurred voice, the hammer clicking back in place as he shoved the weapon down into his holster.

“And you’re damn lucky you’re still sober enough to pull that thing out so quick.” Sam kicked the door shut and walked over to light the lantern beside the bed.

“Where the hell have you been all day?” Travis lifted the bottle to his lips, then cried out in angry protest as Sam knocked it from his hand.

“You’ve had enough. Now you sober up and listen.” His face was red, his eyes glowing. “I’ll tell you where I’ve been—out doing the checking I said I was going to do. You know who brought Kitty into town last night?”

“I don’t care.”

“You will care. About a whole hell of a lot of things when I tell you what I found out. It was that nigra Luther.”

Travis showed signs of interest. “The outlaw we’ve been looking for?”

“Right. I got hold of a nigra that hangs around the saloon downstairs and put the fear of God in him. I’ve had him pegged all along, figuring he kept Luther and his gang informed as to what goes on around town. I was right, and he broke down and told me it was Luther and his boys who helped Kitty escape by slipping onto the McRae place and taking care of all the guards. Then Luther brought Kitty to town.”

Sam wiped perspiration from his brow. It had been a busy day, and he’d been up since way before dawn, determined to get to the bottom of things. “The Negroes were the only friends Kitty had after she got kicked out of the hospital, Travis. She stayed with them awhile, then moved back to a shack on her daddy’s land. Danton and his gang burned her out. They left Kitty in labor, and McRae took her in.”

“Why shouldn’t he?” Travis snapped. “She was having his baby.”

Sam threw his hat down on the floor and stomped on it. “Goddammit, man, why do you have to be so blamed stubborn? I’m trying to tell you. That’s not Corey McRae’s baby. Kitty is telling the truth! I’ve asked enough questions that there’s no doubt in my mind. That’s why they kicked her out of the hospital, because the pious, hypocritical women around here wouldn’t stand for her working there in the family way. That black boy told me a hell of a lot, how he saw her almost attacked the night she left the hospital because she was wandering around with no place to go. McRae came to her rescue. She’d never met him before that night. I even know the date the baby was born. The kid is yours.”

Travis sucked in his breath, a cold chill moving up and down his spine. His son. No, it couldn’t be. Yet Sam had obviously done a lot of checking and believed everything he had learned. Sam was not easily fooled.

“Well, aren’t you going to say anything?” Sam was fuming. “The girl had your baby. You went off and
left
her. She had no place to go, and McRae took advantage of her. And there’s more. I found out Jacob was shipped off with his two grandsons to some farm down in South Carolina, right after me and you hit town. It’s like McRae wanted to make real sure we couldn’t talk to him. You understand? Kitty is telling the truth, and there’s no telling what kind of nightmare you’ve sent her and your son back to live in.”

He sat down on the side of the bed, eyes searching Travis’s face. “There’s still more. I rode out to that Glass woman’s cabin today and talked to her. She’s about the only woman in town that didn’t snub Kitty, and she says that girl worked day and night at the hospital and never left, not till she was thrown out. She says everybody in town was condemning her for carrying a Yankee soldier’s baby in her belly. So how can you deny what’s so? Damn it, man, how can you deny your own son?”

“All right.” Travis’s voice was quiet, ominous. “So the boy is mine. That still doesn’t change anything where Kitty is concerned. You and I both know how I begged her to go with us.”

“Hell, I can see why she wanted to stay. She’d had enough of war, Coltrane. Hadn’t we all? She’d just lost her father, and this was her home.”

“It doesn’t matter. There’s too much that points in the other direction. What about those hired guns that came after us? They almost got me, remember?” His eyes flashed with remembrance. “She’s got a damn good setup, Sam, married to a rich bastard like McRae. She’ll still have it good when the son of a bitch is behind bars.”

Sam leaped to his feet and began pacing the drably furnished room, running nervous fingers through his graying hair. Finally he whirled around and spread his hands and cried, “Well, if you believe the boy is yours, what do you intend to do about it?”

But before Travis could answer, there was a loud pounding on the door. Both men reached for their guns as Sam yelled for them to come in.