The Stranger

“I’ll get more butter out of the springhouse and set some extra places.” Laura darted off like a little hummingbird—so beautiful, Caleb thought. Just looking at her gave him pleasure, like the sight of a cactus in bloom or the deepening glow of a sunset.

Inside, the sparsely furnished house was well kept and cheerful. Strings of garlic and Mexican chiles hung from the open rafters of the whitewashed kitchen. Sprouting herbs in little pots lined the windowsills. The plain plank table had been scrubbed and oiled till it glistened. In its center, a small pottery vase held fresh yellow buttercups and blue columbines.

Laura ladled the beans into bowls from the big iron pot on the stove, then joined the four men at the table. She sat directly across from Caleb, her eyes focused on her food. Caleb watched the careful motion of her spoon as it traveled from the bowl to her pretty rosebud mouth. She took tiny bites, as if she were only pretending to eat.

“We came west last fall, right after we were married,” Mark Shafton was saying. “My wife had inherited a little money back in St. Louis, and I invested it in this prime land. We’ve got five hundred acres, with a good stream running down from the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. You may have noticed the dam I built—I’m right proud of it. It channels water through the springhouse, just a few steps from the back door, so Laura doesn’t have far to walk. That’s important these days.” His eyes lingered on his pretty wife. A smile tugged at one corner of his chiseled mouth.

“Well, you’d best keep a sharp eye out for floods,” Noah muttered around a mouthful of beans. “Strikes me that a big storm could bring enough water down that channel to do some real damage.”

“So I was told.” Mark Shafton buttered a piece of crusty bread. “But when I build something, I build it to last, so I’m not greatly worried. In a few years I plan to have one of the finest cattle ranches in the territory.” He leaned back in his chair and regarded the visitors with a smile. “That’s enough about us. Tell me about your trip, gentlemen. I always enjoy talking with travelers. A man can learn a lot about the country that way.”

While his brothers chatted with Mark Shafton, Caleb stole glances at Laura. Once she looked up, and her dove-gray eyes met his before they flashed downward. After that he was more careful. He loved watching her, but she was already ill at ease. He had no desire to worsen her discomfort.

All too soon, the meal was over. Noah rose from his chair, stifled a belch and announced that it was time to leave. “We’re right grateful for your hospitality, ma’am,” he said, lifting his Stetson from the back of the chair. “It’s been a long spell since we had such tasty vittles.”

He strode outside, followed by Mark Shafton, with Zeke trailing behind. Laura had risen and was gathering up the bowl of butter and the pitcher of milk to take to the springhouse.

“Can—Can I carry that for you?” Caleb’s voice squeaked, forcing him to clear his throat before he could finish the question.

She shook her head. “You’d better catch up with your brothers, Will. You don’t want them leaving you behind.”

The name threw him for an instant. Then he remembered it was the one Noah had given him. She had actually remembered it. As for being left behind by his brothers, there was nothing he’d like better, Caleb thought. Maybe the Shaftons would hire him to stay on and help with the ranch. He was a good worker and there was nothing he didn’t know about horses and cattle.

But Caleb knew better than to dream. When Noah and Zeke rode out the ranch gate, he would be riding with them, and he would never see Laura again.

As Laura hurried out the back door with the butter and milk, he turned away and headed outside. Noah was standing by the horses, talking to Mark Shafton. Zeke was nowhere to be seen.

As he walked toward the corral, Caleb felt a sudden, embarrassing urge, likely brought on by having eaten so many beans. “Beg your pardon, Mr. Shafton, but would you mind if I used your privy?” he asked.

“Go ahead,” the young man replied. “It’s out in the trees, past the springhouse. But you might have to wait for your brother. He went that way a minute ago.”

Caleb found the privy empty, with no sign of Zeke. He did his business and was bending to wash his hands in the creek when he heard voices coming from behind the closed door of the springhouse.

“Just hold still, girlie, while I get a hand under them petticoats.” Zeke’s voice was rough and ugly. “Behave yourself, now, and you’ll be fine. Hell, you might even enjoy it.”

“Please don’t…” Caleb could barely make out Laura’s strained whisper. “Please, I’m going to have a baby.You might hurt—” Her words ended in a gasp.

Caleb pounded against the wooden door. “Zeke! You crazy fool, let her go!” he shouted.

The door resisted as if it might be latched or braced. Frantic, Caleb backed off and flung his full weight against the rough-sawn planks. This time the door gave way so suddenly that he hurtled through the opening and crashed full force against the opposite wall. Something snapped in his shoulder. Dizzy with pain, he careened backward to crumple on the earthen floor.

His eyes caught the flash of a blade in a dark corner of the springhouse. Zeke, he realized, was holding his big Bowie knife against Laura’s throat with one hand while the other hand fumbled beneath her skirt. Dazed and hurting, Caleb scrambled to his knees. His left arm dangled uselessly at his side.

“Get out of here, you stinkin’ little half-breed,” Zeke snarled. “And don’t you go runnin’ to Noah, or I’ll carve you up like a—”

His words ended in a shriek as Laura sank her teeth into his forearm. “You hellcat!” he howled. “I’ll show you—”

They were grappling now, the blade catching glints of the light from the open doorway. Caleb flung himself toward them but he was weak with shock and pain. A kick from Zeke’s heavy boot sent him crashing back against the wall.

Laura screamed like a wounded animal. Caleb’s stomach contracted as he saw the crimson slash where the knife had cut her face from temple to chin, barely missing her eye. He lunged forward, only to stumble into the shadow cast by the tall figure in the doorway.

“You…bastards!” Mark Shafton’s hands gripped the rifle. His voice cracked with fury. “Is this how you repay decent people? By God Almighty, I’ll kill you both!”

Laura had twisted free. She reeled against Caleb as her husband raised his rifle and aimed it at Zeke’s chest. Shafton’s finger was tightening on the trigger when an ear-shattering report rang out from behind him. He dropped the rifle, crumpled forward onto the ground and lay still. A dark red bloodstain began to spread across the back of his clean chambray shirt. Laura fell across his body, wailing like a child.

In the doorway, Noah lowered his smoking pistol. His face was a mask of icy rage. “Get to the horses, damn you!” he snapped at Zeke. “You, too, boy, unless you want to watch me kill a woman!”

“No!” Caleb staggered to his feet and planted himself in front of his brother. “Let her alone! Haven’t we done enough to these people?”

Noah shook his head. “Show some sense, you young fool. If we leave her alive she’ll go straight to the law. We’ll have a posse on our trail before nightfall.”

“She’s going to have a baby,” Caleb said. “If you want to kill them both, you’ll have to shoot me first!”

Noah swore and spat in the dirt. “Damnfool boy! All right, come on, then. We’ll lock her in the springhouse and make tracks. By the time she gets out we’ll be long gone.”

“No. I’m staying here.”

“In a mule’s ass you are!”

“She’s hurt and needs help. I can keep her quiet long enough for you to get a head start and—”

Caleb gasped as he glimpsed Noah’s raised arm. Then the butt of the pistol cracked against his skull and the world crashed into blackness.

It was the last thing he would remember about that day.

Chapter One

July 1881

On the crest of a long ridge, where the eastern slope of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains fell to high desert, Caleb McCurdy paused to rest his horse. Below him a sea of summer-gold grama grass, dotted with clumps of sage and juniper, rippled over the foothills. Willow and cottonwood formed a winding ribbon of green along the creek that meandered into the valley. If he followed that ribbon, Caleb knew it would lead him to an adobe ranch house with sheds and a corral out front and a springhouse just beyond the back door.

He had never wanted to come here again. But the memory of the place had haunted him for the five years he’d spent in Yuma Territorial Prison. Now that he was free, Caleb knew he had to return and face what had happened here. He had to find out what had become of Laura.

His being arrested had nothing to do with the crime against the Shaftons. It was later that same spring that his brothers had gone into a Tombstone bank and left him outside to watch the horses. By the time Caleb had realized there was a robbery in progress the deputy was already snapping the handcuffs around his wrists. Zeke and Noah had made their getaway out the back of the bank. That was the last he’d seen of them.

Caleb had been tried as an accessory and sentenced to six years behind bars. The torrid Arizona nights had given him plenty of time to ponder his mistakes. Staying with Noah and Zeke had been his worst choice. They were family, he’d rationalized at the time. Besides, it wasn’t as if Noah had killed Mark Shafton in cold blood. Noah had fired to save his brothers. As for Zeke, he couldn’t help being the creature he was. For all his flaws, he, too, was blood kin.

Caleb’s fist tightened around the saddle horn. Lord, what a fool he’d been, tagging along with his brothers like a puppy trotting after a pair of wolves. He should have known his trust would lead him straight down the road to hell.

If the tragedy at the Shafton Ranch had cracked the shell of Caleb’s innocence, the weeks that followed had shattered it. Liquor, gambling, women—he’d sampled them all. He would have done anything to blot out the sight of Laura’s bloodied face and the sound of her screams.

His brothers had roared their approval and declared him a man. Then they’d staked him out like bait in front of that Tombstone bank to draw the lawmen while they got away with the loot.

Good behavior had gotten him out of prison a year early. But the hot hell of Yuma had toughened, aged and embittered him. He was twenty-two years old. He felt fifty.

Nudging the sturdy bay to a walk, he wound his way down the brushy slope. The day he’d walked out of prison, he’d taken work with a road-building crew that hired ex-convicts. Two months of backbreaking labor had earned him enough to buy a horse, a beat-up saddle, a gun and knife, a blanket and a change of clothes. With twenty dollars in his pocket, he’d headed east, toward New Mexico and the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Now, on this day of blinding beauty, the long ride was coming to an end.

The afternoon sky was a searing turquoise blue. Where the horse walked, clouds of white butterflies floated out of the grass. A red-tailed hawk circled against the sun.