McKettrick's Choice

She heard the carriage doors closing, heard her father and Creighton talking in earnest tones. Oddly, though, another voice supplanted those, an echo rising suddenly in her brain.

It belonged to Holt McKettrick.

Are you crazy?

HOLT TOOK PLEASURE in the look of surprise on the banker’s face when he looked up and saw him standing there, with John Cavanagh beside him.

A moment too late, the man shoved back his swivel chair and stood, extending a hand in greeting. The fancy name plate on his desk read G. F. Sexton. He was probably no older than Jeb, but already developing jowls and a paunch. That was a banker’s life for you, Holt thought. Too easy.

“Mr. Cavanagh!” Sexton cried, fixing his attention on John. “It’s good to see you.”

John regarded the pale, freckled hand for a long moment, then shook it. “Under the circumstances,” he said, “it’s good to see you, too.” Sexton’s gaze shifted to Holt, full of wary curiosity.

Holt didn’t offer a handshake, or an explanation. “We’re here about those loans you called,” he said.

A flush stole up Sexton’s neck, if that narrow band of pallid flesh could be called a neck, and pulsed along the edge of his jaw. “You understand, of course, that business is business—”

“I understand perfectly,” Holt said.

Sexton tugged at his celluloid collar. A fine sheen of sweat glimmered on his forehead. His gaze kept flitting back and forth between Holt’s face and John’s, skittish about lighting too long on either one. “I’m afraid the foreclosure is quite legal, if you’ve a mind to discuss that,” the banker said. He consulted the calendar on the wall behind his chair. “In two weeks, the ranch will be sold for outstanding debts.”

Holt indulged in a slow smile. “Will it?” he asked softly.

Sexton took a half step back. “Mr. Cavanagh owes—”

“Ten thousand dollars,” Holt interrupted, and laid a telegram from his bank in Indian Rock on the desk.

“They’re sending a draft by wire. You should have it by tomorrow morning.”

Sexton got even redder. He fumbled in his breast pocket for spectacles, put them on, read the telegram and blanched. “My God,” he said, and sank heavily into his chair.

“There’ll be another draft sent to First Cattleman’s, up in Austin,” John put in. “You see, my son here just bought my place, lock, stock and barrel. I could have deposited the money here, I reckon, but—you’ll understand, business being business—that I had some concerns about its safekeeping.”

The banker was a few horse-lengths behind. “Your son?” he squeaked.

Holt swallowed a laugh.

“Foster son,” John relented, having had his fun. “Holt’s taken his real daddy’s name—McKettrick—but he went by Cavanagh for a good part of his life.” He braced his work-worn hands on the edge of Sexton’s desk and leaned in. “You tell Mr. Templeton he’ll find Holt a sight harder to deal with than an old black man and a slow-witted girl.”

“Mr. Templeton?” Sexton croaked. “What does he have to do with this?”

“A whole lot, I reckon,” John said smoothly. “You ever think about punchin’ cattle for a livin’, Mr. Sexton? Mr. McKettrick, here, he’s hirin’. Lookin’ for thirty men or so. A season in the saddle might put some color in your cheeks.”

“My knees are bad,” Sexton said fretfully.

“I reckon your conscience smarts some, too,” John replied. “If you’ve got one, that is.” He turned to Holt, his eyes gleaming with the old spirit. “Best we be goin’. Tillie’ll be through at the general store, and there’s Gabe to be looked in on before we head back out to the ranch. Make sure he’s getting the meals my son arranged for, over to the Republic Hotel.”

Sexton rallied. His train was still back a couple of stations. “Austin’s a long ways from here. You might want to reconsider that deposit, Mr. Cavanagh.”

“Then again,” John answered lightly, “I might not.”

Holt chuckled.

“What about you, Mr. McKettrick?” Sexton asked anxiously, standing up again. Even on his feet, he was knee-high to a burro, but he was still steaming along. “You’ll need banking services, I’m sure.”

Holt, in the process of turning away, paused. John had already gained the door.

“You’ve got more guts than I would have given you credit for, Mr. Sexton,” he said. “Goodbye. And don’t forget to give my best regards to Isaac Templeton.”

He joined John on the wooden sidewalk.

“Damn,” John said jubilantly, “that felt good.”

Holt laughed and slapped him on the back. “Let’s collect Tillie and pay Gabe a visit. How long do you figure we have before Templeton comes to call?”

John made a show of taking out his watch. He’d fought on the Union side during the war, and the timepiece, a gift from his captain, was the only memento he’d kept from his days as a Buffalo Soldier, except, of course, for that chunk of cannonball lodged deep in his right thigh. “I reckon he’ll get word by sundown.”

“You think he’ll order a raid on the herd?”

Cavanagh shook his head. “Not without sizing you up first,” he said. “Mr. Templeton, he likes to have the facts in his possession before he makes a move.”

They stepped into the cool dimness of the general store, and the typical mercantile smells of clean sawdust, saddle leather, onions and dust greeted them.

Holt scanned the room for Tillie, found her standing alone at the counter, with a pile of goods stacked in front of her, while the clerk jawed with a cowboy a few feet away. Tillie might as well have been one of the outdated notices pinned to the wall for all the attention she was getting, and her eyes were huge as she watched Holt and her father approach.

“What can I do for you—gentlemen?” the clerk inquired.

“You can wait on the lady, for a start,” Holt said, with a nod toward Tillie.

“I don’t see no lady,” the clerk replied. Scrawny little rooster.

Holt smiled broadly, reached across the counter, took a good, firm hold on the man’s shirtfront and thrust him upward, off the floor. “Then there’s something wrong with your eyesight, my friend,” he drawled, as John stepped between him and the cowhand. “You might want to invest in a pair of those fine spectacles on display in the front window.”

“Mac,” the clerk choked. “Ain’t you gonna do somethin’?”

“No, sir,” Mac said cheerfully, and Holt turned his head long enough to take in the cowboy. “I reckon you’ve got this coming.” He turned easily, resting his weight against the counter. “You Holt McKettrick?” he asked.

“I heard on the street that you might be looking for ranch hands.”

Holt eased the clerk down onto the balls of his feet. “I might be,” he said.

The clerk scrambled along the counter to face Tillie with a feverish smile. “Mornin’, ma’am,” he said. “What can I do for you today?”

CHAPTER 6

“MAC KAHILL,” the cowboy said, as Holt and John loaded Tillie’s purchases into the back of the buckboard. “You don’t remember me, do you?”

“Can’t say as I do,” Holt replied, hoisting a fifty-pound bag of pinto beans off the sidewalk.