McKettrick's Choice

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 28

CHAPTER 29

CHAPTER 30

CHAPTER 31

CHAPTER 32

CHAPTER 33

CHAPTER 34

CHAPTER 35

CHAPTER 36

CHAPTER 37

CHAPTER 38

EPILOGUE

CHAPTER 1

Arizona Territory, August 12, 1888

HOLT MCKETTRICK hooked a finger under his fancy collar in a vain effort to loosen it a little. Wedding guests milled on the wide, grassy stretch of ground alongside the Triple M ranch house, their finery dappled by shivering patches of shade from the young oaks thriving there. Two fiddlers played a mournful rendition of “Lorena,” and there was a whole hog roasting in the pit Holt’s three half brothers had dug in the ground and lined with flat rocks from the creek. The wedding cake, baked by Holt’s sisters-in-law, was the size of a buckboard, and a long table—an improvised arrangement of planks supported by half a dozen fifty-gallon barrels—wobbled under the weight of a week’s worth of fancy grub.

The old man and the rest of the McKettrick outfit had spared no effort or expense to make the gathering memorable. Holt reckoned he might have enjoyed it as much as the next fellow—if he hadn’t been the bridegroom.

A hand struck his back in jovial greeting, and Holt nearly spilled his cup of fruit punch, generously laced with whiskey from his brother Rafe’s flask, down the front of his dandy suit.

“I reckon that’s the preacher, yonder,” said Holt’s father, Angus McKettrick, nodding toward an approaching rider splashing across the sun-dazzled creek, driving his horse hard. “’Bout time he showed up. I was beginning to think we’d have to send somebody out to the mission to fetch that crippled-up padre.”

Holt swallowed, squinted. Heat prickled the back of his neck. Something stirred in him, a sweet, aching feeling like he got on hot summer nights, when a high-country breeze curled around his brain like a voice calling him back to Texas.

“I reckon,” he muttered. Holt wondered where Rafe had gotten to with that flask, though he didn’t look away from the rider to search the crowd.

The newcomer, his features hidden in the glare of midafternoon light, spurred his horse up the creek bank on the near side, man and mount flinging off diamonds of water as they came.

“Margaret is a fine woman,” Angus said. He had a way of cutting a statement loose without laying any groundwork first.

“Who?” Holt asked, distracted. The skin between his shoulder blades itched, and his chest felt wet beneath the starched cotton of his shirtfront.

“Your bride,” Angus answered, with a note of exasperation. Out of the corner of his eye, Holt saw his father tug at the knot in his string tie. Like as not, his wife, Concepcion, had cinched it tight as a corset ribbon.

The rider gained the edge of the yard and dismounted with the hasty grace of a seasoned cowpuncher, leaving the reins to dangle. He came straight for Holt.

“That ain’t the preacher,” Angus remarked unnecessarily, and with concern. Though he had almost no formal education, the old man read till his eyes gave out, and when he let his grammar slip, it meant he was agitated.

Holt glanced toward the house, where Miss Margaret Tarquin, his bride-to-be, was shut away in an upstairs bedroom getting herself gussied up for the wedding, then went to meet the messenger. The fiddle-playing ground to a shrill halt, and a silence settled over the crowd. Even the kids and the dogs were quiet.

“I’m lookin’ for Holt Cavanagh,” the newly arrived young man announced. His denim trousers were wet with creek water, and he shivered, despite the shimmering heat of that August afternoon. “You’d be him, I reckon?”

Holt nodded in brusque acknowledgment. It didn’t occur to him to explain that he’d set aside the name Cavanagh, once he and the old man had made their blustery peace, and went by McKettrick these days.

Angus stuck close, bristly brows lowered, and Rafe, Kade and Jeb, elusive until then, seemed to materialize out of the rippling mirages haunting the grounds like ghosts. Holt and his brothers had had their differences in the three years they’d been acquainted—still did—but blood was blood. If the rider brought good news, they’d celebrate. If it was bad, they’d do what they could to help. And if there was trouble in the offing, they’d wade right into the fray and ask for the particulars later.

Holt’s affection for them, though sometimes grudging, was in his marrow.

The visitor handed over a slip of paper. “Frank Corrales told me to give you this. He sent you a telegram, and when you didn’t answer, he figured it didn’t go through and told me to hit the trail. I carried that there letter all the way from Texas.”

A shock of alarm surged through Holt, like venom from an invisible snake. He hesitated slightly, then snatched the soggy sheet of brown paper and unfolded it with a snap of his wrist. He felt his father and brothers move a stride closer.

He took in the words in a glance, absorbed the implications, and read them again to make sure he had the right of the situation.

JOHN CAVANAGH ABOUT TO BE DRIVEN OFF HIS LAND.

GABE TO HANG FOR A HORSE THIEF AND A MURDERER ON THE FIRST OF OCTOBER. COME QUICK.

FRANK CORRALES

Holt was still digesting the news when a feminine voice jarred him out of his stupor, and a slender hand came to rest on his coat sleeve. “Holt? Is something wrong?”

Holt started slightly, turned his head to look down into the upturned face of his bride-to-be, resplendent in her lacy finery and gossamer veil. She was a pretty woman, with fair hair and expressive blue eyes, a sent-for wife, imported all the way from Boston. Holt never looked at her without a stab of guilt; Margaret deserved a man who loved her, not one who wanted a mother for his young daughter, a bed companion for himself and not much else.

“I’ve got to go back to Texas,” he said. The words had been shambling along the far borders of his mind for a long while, but this was the first time he’d let them come to the fore, let alone find their way out of his mouth.

Angus cleared his throat, and the whole party started up again, like it was some sort of signal. Reluctantly, Rafe, Kade and Jeb moved off, and Angus handed the rider a five-dollar gold piece, then steered him toward the food table.

One of the ranch hands took care of the exhausted horse.