CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“By the cut of your jib you ain’t a puncher,” Frank Cobb said. “So, what the hell are you?”
“A spy,” Gabe Dancer said. “That’s what he is.”
“I’m asking him,” Frank said.
“Go to hell,” Archie Lane said.
“What do they call you?”
“John Smith.”
“Why the field glasses?” Frank said.
“Like I told the crazy old coot, I’m a birdwatcher,” Lane said.
“From where?” Frank said.
Lane’s eyes moved rapidly, as though they were trying to escape their sockets. Finally, he said, “Deming.”
“You came all the way from the New Mexico Territory to watch birds on Kerrigan range?” Frank said.
“Yeah. All the way.”
Lane’s arms were stretched above his head, his wrists tied to a stable beam. Adding to his discomfort, he’d been lifted just high enough so that he was forced to stand on tiptoe, painful for a man wearing hand-sewn boots made on a narrow last.
“Boss, you want me to beat the truth out of him?” Shorty Hawkins said, slamming his fist into his palm. He looked aggressive and angry.
“It might come to that, Shorty,” Frank said. Then, “Smith, you ever heard of a man in the territory by the name of Blade Koenig?”
“Hell, I bet his name ain’t Smith,” said a puncher, one of the eight crammed into the barn to watch the fun.
“Smith will do for now,” Frank said. “Answer me, have you heard of Blade Koenig?”
“I don’t know the man,” Lane said. “Never heard of him.”
“You’re from Deming, but you never heard of Blade Koenig, the biggest rancher in that part of the New Mexico Territory?”
“No. Never even heard the man’s name mentioned.”
“You’re lying to me, Smith,” Frank said. “Somebody sent you to scout this ranch. What’s his name?”
“I told you. I was birdwatching,” Lane said.
“Frank, that’s enough.” Kate stood in the doorway, listening to Frank’s interrogation and realizing it was going nowhere. “I’ll get the truth out of him.”
It was time to play her ace—in the stocky, soot-stained form of Marco Salas, the ranch blacksmith. He held a pair of fire tongs that still glowed cherry red from the forge.
“One of you men take down his britches,” she said. And then to Marco, “You know what to do. They’ll crush easily, and when they’re just a pair of cinders they’ll drop off. Understand?”
“Sí, señora. The tongs are still hot. Squeeze and then they drop off, esta bien?”
“Sí, Marco, that is right,” she said.
Archie Lane’s eyes took on the size and sheen of silver dollars. “What the hell are you doing, woman?” he said, his naturally high-pitched voice spiking.
“Me? I’m doing nothing.” She nodded at Marco. “He’s the one doing.”
“Doing what?” Lane squeaked.
“He’s going to geld you, castrate you, eunuchize you. Take your pick. I can’t abide the sight of blood, so the tongs are better than the knife since they cauterize as they go along and still get the job done.”
Lane looked around him wildly and yelled, “Somebody!” Getting no response, he shrieked, “Damn it. Somebody stop her!”
The hard faces of the punchers who saw this man as some kind of threat to the brand stared back at Lane, but nobody made a sound.
Then Dancer said, “Seen a white man gelded one time after he raped an Arapaho woman up in the Nations. But they done the cuttin’ with a knife. I never seen it done with fire tongs. Should be a sight to see.”
“Should be a thing to hear,” Frank Cobb said.
“Mrs. Kerrigan, them tongs will get cold right quick,” Dancer said.
“Marco, do your duty,” Kate said.
The short, thickset blacksmith nodded and worked the handles of the tongs and their smoking jaws opened and shut with a metallic chink-chink sound. He advanced on the horrified Lane and said, “Señor, you are about to suffer a great loss, and for that I am sorry.”
Dancer’s hoarse whisper cut into the quiet that followed. “Well, I never seen the like.”
Kate’s breaths came in fast little gasps. She glanced at Trace, whose face was ashen, and then at Frank, his jaw set as he stared not at Lane or Marco, but directly at Kate. She turned away and did not meet his eyes.
“For the love of God!” Lane roared, his face made terrible by fear.
The tongs were very close, their serrated jaws agape. Marco lifted the pincers closer to his mouth and spat. The hot iron sizzled. All the blacksmith’s attention was fixed on Lane’s naked loins as he shuffled closer still. “So sorry, señor. I hope you will forgive me . . . afterward.”
Archie Lane felt the intense heat of the blue iron. Smelled the smoke. Smelled fear. “My name is Archie Lane and I work for Davis Salt!” It was a hoarse bellow of sheer terror. “Get them damn tongs away from me.”
Kate waved Marco off. “Who is Davis Salt and why did he send you here?”
“I forget,” Lane said.
“Marco,” Kate said.
“To spy on the ranch buildings,” Lane yelled. “Salty is an outlaw. Me, him, others, we’re all outlaws.”
“Why did Salt send you to spy on us?” Kate said, waving the blacksmith to a halt again.
“He plans an attack.”
“Why?”
“He’s working for someone.”
“Who is he working for?”
“I don’t know.”
“Marco, give Mr. Lane a taste of the fire tongs,” Kate said. “Perhaps they will jog his memory.”
“No!” Lane yelled. “I remember! I remember! He’s working for a feller by the name of Seth Koenig. His pa owns the biggest spread in the New Mexico Territory.”
Kate felt a chill. “Seth Koenig hired him to attack my ranch?”
“Yeah, lady. He wants this spread for his ownself, at least that’s what I heard.”
“What does his father have to say about all this?” she said.
“Blade? He ain’t in the picture, near as I can tell.”
Kate hesitated a few moments and then said, “A couple of you men cut him down from there. Frank, question him, get him to tell you all he knows.” Then, for Lane’s benefit, “Marco, you can go now, but I may need you later.”
“Anytime, Mrs. Kerrigan,” the blacksmith said. He grinned and snapped the jaws of the tongs in Lane’s face. “Bandito, I will keep these hot for you.”
* * *
“Kate, Davis Salt plans to attack us, all right,” Frank said. “Lane claims he’s recruited around fifty riders, every one of them a named gun. I’ve heard of Salt. He’s made a rep for himself as an outlaw, and he doesn’t hire amateurs.”
“When?” Surprised that her hand was steady, she poured Frank a whiskey, handed him the glass, and sat in her chair again.
“Soon. Lane says that’s all he knows, and I believe him.”
“Fifty gunmen, plus the Hellfire hands. We could be facing eighty or ninety riders.”
“Seems about right to me, Kate.”
“We can’t fight that many.”
“We can’t fight half that many, at least not out in the open.”
“What did Lane say about Blade Koenig?”
Frank shook his head. “About Blade, nothing. Lane says Seth is running the show. That’s a mystery. I just don’t see Blade stepping back and leaving the attack to his worthless son.”
Kate adjusted the fall of her dress over her knees, more to gather her thoughts than anything else, but when she finally spoke all she could say was, “Yes, it’s odd that, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, it is, very strange,” Frank said. “Blade is no spring chicken, but he isn’t too old to run his ranch, not by a long stretch.” The big segundo thought for a moment and then said, “Unless Blade has took sick and is feeling poorly.”
“Has taken sick,” Kate said. “I can’t think of a man more unlikely to come down with a misery than Blade Koenig. When he was here he looked as big and strong as one of those Kodiak bears you read about in the dime novels.”
Frank smiled. “Kate, you read dime novels?”
“From time to time I like to read about Bill’s adventures.”
“Buffalo or Wild?” Frank said, teasing.
“Buffalo Bill, of course. Unfortunately, I missed him in London before he left for Germany.”
“We could use his riders. I wish he was here.”
“So do I. Koenig and Salt have all those gunmen, Frank. How do we stand up to an army?”
“Well, there’s me, Trace, the cook, and the blacksmith, that’s four. We held on to eight hands, including one I recalled from the Rio Grande, all of them gun handy, and that makes twelve. If she doesn’t leave, Aragon will throw in with us to protect Maria Ana, and we can probably count on Gabe Dancer and his rifle, now he’s walking out with Biddy Kelly.”
Kate said, “Add me and Mose and we can muster sixteen.” She frowned. “The Kerrigan Fusiliers. Not much of a regiment, is it?”
“Well, I guess it all depends how we use it.”
“If we use it well, do we have any chance, Frank?”
He drained his whiskey glass and was wishful for more. “Kate, I won’t lie to you. Against fifty professional gunmen plus the Hellfire hands? We don’t have a hope in hell.”
“So it is hopeless. Like trying to argue a point with the grim reaper?”
“That’s about the size of it,” Frank said.
Kate sat in silence for a while as Frank got himself another drink. When he returned to his chair she’d come to a decision . . . she would swallow her pride, and it was a bitter pill to swallow.
“We can’t spare a fighting man, but I’ll put Nora on a good horse and have her ride to Hiram Clay and ask for his help. Nora is an excellent rider and a sensible girl.”
Frank had to point out the obvious. “It’s three days on the trail to the Clay spread, and even if Hiram leaves right away and rides night and day he may not get here in time.” He looked into Kate’s bleak eyes. “I guess it all depends on Davis Salt’s next move.”
“We can stand him off, Frank,” Kate said. “Can we fortify the bunkhouse and fight from there?”
“Yes, we can. I’ll get the hands started on it right away.”
“We must make it a fortress.”
“Yeah, Kerrigan Castle.”
“You don’t seem convinced.”
“Men who are good with guns can wear us down and keep us penned up until we run out of ammunition and water. I’ll do what I can to strengthen the bunkhouse, but it was built for sleeping, not fighting.”
“Who is this Salt person?” Kate said. “Does he have a weakness we can exploit?”
Frank’s smile was meager, grudging. “You read the Bible, Kate, so believe me when I tell you that Davis Salt is all Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse rolled into one. And if he has a weakness, no one has found it yet.”
“Then tonight I’ll say a rosary for our protection against such evil.”
“Better say two, Kate. We’re sure as hell gonna need them.”
* * *
Nora Andrews was a tall, sunburned girl with brown eyes and dark hair that she habitually wore in a bun. She had returned from London with Kate, taking the place of Kate’s lady’s maid Flossie, who had gone back east to return to teaching. Aware of the imminent danger facing the Kerrigan ranch, Nora insisted on leaving right away while there was still three hours of daylight left.
“Be careful, Nora,” Kate said. “I’ll be so worried about you.”
“I’ll be just fine, Mrs. Kerrigan. I’ve camped out before, in England of course and in a tent,” Nora said as she stepped into the saddle. She wore a man’s shirt, hat, and boots and a tan-colored canvas skirt, split for riding, she’d borrowed from Kate. Under her knee a Winchester was in the boot and tied to the saddle horn a burlap sack that, thanks to Jazmine, carried enough grub to last a strong man a week.
“Wait a moment, s’il vous plait.” Maria Ana hurried to Nora and handed her a silver medal on a chain. “Wear this around your neck, mon enfant. It’s a medal of holy St. Christopher, the patron saint of travelers, and he’ll protect you on your long journey.”
Nora smiled her thanks and slipped the chain over her head. She looked at the small medal. “Who is he carrying on his shoulders?”
“The Christ child,” Mara Ana said.
“Then I’m in good hands,” Nora said.
“I’ll say prayers for you until you’re home safe and sound,” Kate said.
The girl smiled. “A St. Christopher medal and prayers . . . what could possibly go wrong?”
“It’s wild, empty country out there,” Kate said. “Please be very careful.”
“Shorty Hawkins taught me to shoot,” Nora said. “It bored me at the time, but now I’m glad he took the time to do it.”
Kate nodded. “Shorty is good with a rifle.” She smiled. “I feel a little better now. Nora, tell Hiram Clay to come on at the gallop. Tell him that time is of the essence.”
“Yes, Mrs. Kerrigan, I’ll make sure he knows how urgently he’s needed.”
“I’m sorry I had to ask you to do this,” Kate said.
“Don’t be sorry. I’m part of the Kerrigan ranch now, and I know where my duty lies.”
Kate smiled. “You ride for the brand.”
“Yes, I do.” Nora raised a hand in farewell, swung her mare around, and galloped eastward under the fading sun. Behind her for awhile she heard hammering as the hands boarded the bunkhouse windows and then there was only the drumbeat of her bay mare’s hooves and the rush of the prairie wind past her ears.