Chapter 25

The minister hurried into the church as a jagged bolt of lightning shattered a cottonwood along the creek. The sky opened, and rain came down in torrents, drenching Rebecca to the skin.

The overpowering odors of sulfur and brimstone choked the air. Rebecca shivered, cold to the bone and feeling the odd prickling of raw energy along the surface of her bare skin. Moaning wind shook the trees, hurling branches and leaves across the yard to batter the church. She braced herself against the gusts and tried to protect her eyes from the flying debris.

"Come on!" Shouting to be heard, Drum sliced through the rope around Shaw's ankles and ordered him out of the wagon. "Try and run for it, and we'll shoot."

Shaw started for the church, his wrists still tightly bound behind him. Welsh and Drummond followed closely, guns ready.

Rebecca and Corbett waited just outside the door. "I'm not going to let you do this," she shouted to Corbett. "Shaw and I were married months ago. If you do force him to marry Eve, it will be a farce."

"Doesn't matter," Corbett shook his head. "This is the marriage that will count. It will satisfy the neighbors and keep the boy from being called a bastard."

"I won't let you murder Shaw!" she flung back. "You'll have to hang me with him!"

"Get out of the way, Becca," Drummond warned. "You're only going to get hurt if you—"

Without warning, the door frame above her head splintered.

Instinctively, she threw up her hands to protect her head and flung herself onto the muddy ground beside the steps. Her first thought was that lightning had struck the church, but when she looked up, she didn't see fire or scorched wood. "What..."

She pushed herself up out of the wet grass, then was knocked flat as Shaw threw himself on top of her. "Keep down!" he yelled.

Another crack sounded. And then she heard the unmistakable rumble of horses' hooves. Welsh dashed past her into the church as a dozen MacCades galloped into the churchyard. Corbett fired his gun, then scrambled after his brother.

Drummond put the barrel of his rifle to the back of Shaw's neck. "Hold it right there!" he shouted. "I'll shoot him. I swear I'll blow his damned head off."

Will MacCade was the first man off his horse. Rifle in hand, bowie knife jammed in his belt, he took cover behind a large tree. "I'll shoot my brother myself before I see him wed to a Raeburn!" he yelled.

Shaw's father, Murdoch, hauled back on his mount's head, forcing the huge animal to rear. "Make up your mind, Shaw! Are you a MacCade or a Raeburn? You can't have it both ways!"

"Go ahead and shoot me, Pap!" Shaw shouted back. "Kill me if you think two dead sons will take away the pain of losing one." Then to Drum, he said, "Get her the hell inside, before they stop talkin' and start shootin' for real."

"No!" Rebecca cried. "I'm not leaving you." She felt sick with fear, not for herself, but for Shaw.

"You get to your feet. Slow," Corbett said. Then he raised his voice. "We're going in the church. All three of us! You shoot, you'll hit him!"

Shaw scrambled up, and Drum yanked Rebecca to her feet. She stared through the slanting downpour, trying to identify the MacCades as her brother tugged her along.

The teeming deluge made it nearly impossible to recognize faces, but she thought she could make out Ewen and Payton. Another rider, maybe Nigel, had dismounted toward the back of the church. He was crouching, running a zigzag course toward the far east window.

"Nobody make any sudden moves now," Shaw called out. "Lower that pistol, Drum. You want to get Becca killed?"

"Like hell." White-faced with fear, Drum backed toward the steps, keeping hold of Rebecca. Shaw shadowed her, shielding her body with his.

"Come out and face me like a man, Campbell Raeburn!" Murdoch roared. "It all ends right here, you swivin' back-shooter!"

"Stop! Stop it all of you!" Suddenly, Fiona MacCade and Noah appeared from the far side of the meetinghouse and dashed toward the entrance.

"Fiona?" Shaw's father swore a foul oath. "You've no business here! Get out of the way!"

"What you gonna do? Shoot me, too?" She didn't stop until she'd reached the church. Murdoch threw himself out of the saddle and lunged for her, but she whipped out a pistol and fired two shots over his head.

Murdoch stopped in his tracks and shook his fist at her.

"Devil take you, Murdoch!" she cried. "I heard what you said! All of you, put down your guns! Now!" She shoved Drum out of the way and called through the door. "Jeanne Monro Campbell? You in there?"

"I am," Grandma answered.

"Get your menfolk to put down their weapons, and I'll see these mangy coyotes do the same."

"Done!" her grandmother replied.

Fiona nudged Noah. "Go on in, boy. No one will hurt you." Noah did as he was told, and then Shaw's mother turned her angry stare on Drummond. "Ain't you got no manners, boy! I said put down that pistol."

Drum shook his head. "No, ma'am. He shamed my sister, and he's going to marry her."

Fiona snapped her revolver up, smashing it into Drum's rifle hand. He let out a yelp of pain and dropped his rifle just as she drove a hefty shoulder into him. Drum rocked back, slid off the wooden steps, and landed in the mud. "Best Jeanne should teach you to mind your elders," Fiona admonished. Then she turned her attention to Shaw and Rebecca. "Have you lost your minds? Get inside out of the rain."

Shaw gave Rebecca a nudge. She darted inside, and he came after her. Fiona waited a moment, then called out, "I'm comin' in, Jeanne. If they shoot me, it's on your soul."

Rebecca stared around the room. Noah was just inside the door, somewhat puzzled at this new game. Her father stood at the window, her brothers beside him. Poppa still clutched his rifle, but the barrel was pointed at the floor. Uncle Quinn was at the front of the church, guarding the west window. Reverend Jarrell, Eve, and Dagmar Hedger sat on the floor between the pews. When Eve saw her come through the door, she got up and came closer, careful to keep away from both the front door and the windows.

"Cowards, the lot of you," Grandma said. She took off her coat and draped it over Rebecca's shoulders. "Are you satisfied, Campbell? You've made a fool of yourself and nearly gotten us all killed. And for what? Your honor?" She threw him a look of utter contempt. "Dagmar? Give me your cloak, woman. Your cloak." She motioned to the Norwegian woman's cape. "Yours is bigger than Eve's."

Rebecca's grandmother handed the garment to Shaw's mother. "Put it on, Fiona. We'll keep the reverend busy performing funerals if you all stay wet." She glanced at Welsh. "You, boy. Start a fire in the stove."

"This doesn't change anything, Mother," Rebecca's father said. "You know I didn't mean to hang Shaw. Quinn thought it would put a proper scare into him—make him go through with the wedding to Eve."

"We didn't?" Drum said.

Rebecca fumbled with the rope at Shaw's wrists. Her fingers were stiff and the knots wet. She looked at Noah. "Cut this rope," she said. Obediently, he pulled out his knife and began sawing at the ties.

"What we need," Fiona said to Rebecca's grandmother, "is a talk."

"Let Shaw marry Eve. Then we'll talk," her father said.

"All right with you if Murdoch and my boys come in out of the rain?" Fiona asked. "We can let the preacher take charge of the weapons." She chuckled. "Just not mine."

"Ma..." Shaw said.

"You hold your tongue same as the rest. It's time you men listened." Fiona looked at Rebecca's father questioningly. "If I promise you that Eve will walk out of here a married woman, will you listen to reason?"

Rebecca's father glanced at Quinn. Her uncle nodded. "It's what we come here for, isn't it?"

John Jarrell got up and held out his hand. "Your gun, Quinn? Campbell? The rest of you?"

"Get theirs first," Uncle Quinn said.

Fiona went to the door. "Murdoch. Will. Ewen. Payton. Bruce. All of you. Come in here. And hand your firearms to the parson as you step inside. It's a truce."

Shaw's father cursed. His mother replied with a more colorful profanity, concentrating on Murdoch's ancestry and intelligence.

Shaw's hands came free. He put an arm around Rebecca's shoulder, and she turned and hugged him. "This is a crazy place," she murmured. "We've got to get—"

"Shh," he said. "Ma's got some kind of a plan."

One by one his brothers filed into the church. Some handed their guns to Jarrell; others apparently had left their weapons outside. Bruce came in alone. Murdoch didn't show his face.

"I s'pose I've got to go out after him," Fiona said. "He's proud, same as you, Campbell. And he's believed you've done him wrong for a long time." She glanced at Rebecca's grandmother. "Think you can keep these boys from killin' each other while I'm gone?"

"Count on it," Rebecca's grandmother answered. She motioned to Reverend Jarrell as Fiona left the church. "This might not be a bad time for a Bible reading."

Awkwardly, he stacked the guns on a pew seat. "If you'd all..." He cleared his throat. "If you'd all please bow your heads for a moment of prayer." Rebecca clasped Shaw's hand as the prayer ended, and Jarrell began to recite a passage of Scripture from memory.

In the silence that followed, MacCades and Raeburns eyed each other with undisguised hostility. Eve, Dagmar, and Rebecca's grandmother joined the minister, blocking the pile of weapons with united determination.

"Shaw," Rebecca whispered. "Maybe we should—"

A blast of wind and rain blew through the open door as Murdoch MacCade flung it open. He strode in, followed by Fiona, their son Leslie, and two sons-in-law. "I hear you're ready to talk, Campbell," Murdoch declared. "This is your chance."

"Not before your boy makes my daughter an honest woman!" Rebecca's father said.

"Fair enough," Fiona said. She held out her hand to Eve. "You ready?"

"Not to marry him," Eve protested, indicating Shaw.

"No. Not him," Bruce said. Red-faced, he stepped forward. "Reckon this is the time and place, Eve."

"Bruce?" Shaw said. "What the hell? What have you got to do with this?"

A rumble rose from both sides of the church. Then Rebecca's father called out, "Are you Jamie's father?"

"No, Mr. Raeburn, I'm not." Bruce straightened his shoulders and ran a nervous hand through his rain-soaked hair. "Laird was the boy's daddy. But he's dead, and we..." Shaw's cousin broke off, his usual garrulous self silenced by the tension contained in these four walls.

Eve rescued him. She went to his side and clasped his hand. "I tried to tell you, Poppa. But you never would listen to anything you didn't want to hear. I loved your son, Mr. MacCade. I loved him enough to have his child. But he's gone now. He's not coming back, and Bruce..." She smiled up into his face. "Bruce has asked me to be his wife. He wants to be a husband to me and a father to Jamie. And I accepted."

"But Shaw..." Rebecca's father began.

"Shaw has been a brother to me," Eve said. "Better than my own brothers here lately. He helped me out when I needed a friend, but that's all there is between us." She looked at Jarrell. "If you'd say the words for us..."

"Yes, yes, of course," the minister said, hurrying toward the altar.

Rebecca glanced at her father. He looked so ashamed that she could almost feel compassion for him.

"Better make that a double wedding, Reverend," Rebecca's Uncle Quinn said. "If Shaw MacCade didn't ruin one of our girls, he sure took liberties with the other."

"Rebecca told you that we're already married," Shaw said.

"That's right," Fiona put in. "Shaw told me the same thing, before he went off to find Laird's boy."

"Married by some judge?" Rebecca's father said. "I don't count that as a—"

"I'll marry her again, anytime, anyplace," Shaw said. "Becca?"

"No! Not like this. Not in a muddy dress with rifles piled in the pews and our families at each other's throats. You'll not force me into making a mockery of my wedding," she said. Then she looked at her sister. "Eve, I didn't mean—"

"It's all right, Becca," Eve said with a smile. "I've always done things my own way." She turned back to Jarrell. "Best you get this over with," she said to the minister. "A girl has to take what she can get, when she can get it."

"Yes," Reverend Jarrell agreed. It was clear to Rebecca that the parson was spooked, but he managed the swift ceremony with only a few stops and starts. He stammered through the part about if anyone knew good reason why the marriage should not take place. And when he asked who gave this woman to be married to this man, her father didn't answer and didn't move from his place by the window.

Still holding tightly to Rebecca's hand, Shaw quickly moved up the aisle between the pews. "I do," he said. "I'll give her to be married." His mother pulled her own wedding ring off her finger and passed it to Shaw, who handed it to the groom. Bruce slipped the gold band onto Eve's finger, and Noah let out a loud shout of excitement.

Bruce kissed his bride, then turned to face their families. "First, I want to say that I married Eve because I love her. I've loved her for a long time, even before her and Laird..." He stopped, and sweat broke out on his brow. "You... might want to get that rope ready for me," he said."'Cause I'm... I'm the one who..." He covered his face with his hands. "Oh, God, this... is hard," he managed.

Eve slipped her arm around his waist. "Go ahead," she urged. "Tell them."

"Laird and me... we were hunting deer. He had..."

"Laird had been to see me twice that week, Poppa," Eve said. "And when he left the first time, he must have borrowed your gun. You were away. He would have brung it back. Laird wasn't a thief. He'd heard people saying how far you could shoot with it, and he wanted to try his hand at a deer."

"We... we..." Bruce gripped the back of a pew like a drowning man. "Laird lost a bet to me that morning. So I made him let me take first try with the rifle." His voice cracked. "It was an accident. He must have been playing a joke on me, sneaking up behind... and thrashing in the brush. You know how he liked to trick you. I shot him, Uncle Murdoch. I killed Laird."

"And you let me take the blame for it?" Rebecca's father shouted. He lunged toward Bruce, but Corbett and Drum caught hold of his arms.

"You killed him?" Murdoch rasped. "You killed my boy?"

"It was an accident," Fiona said. "He didn't mean for it to happen, and it's near broke his heart ever since."

Rebecca's grandmother spoke up. "You knew? You knew he did it?"

"Didn't know for certain. Suspected it," Fiona said. "I never saw a man grieve so for his cousin. Then, a few weeks ago, I asked him, and he told me what really happened."

"You son of a bitch," Rebecca's father swore. "You let me go to trial—"

"I knew you'd never be found guilty," Bruce said. "It was wrong, but I couldn't tell that..." He sank down on a bench and hung his head. Rebecca had to strain to hear him. "You took me in, treated me like your own blood, and I killed your son."

Eve stood over him protectively.

"What about Campbell's horse you saw that night?" Uncle Quinn demanded. "You didn't see any horse, did you?"

"No. No, I didn't," Bruce admitted. "The sheriff asked me if I saw Campbell's horse, and I must have said I did. I don't even remember much of that night. I was tore up over Laird. I never meant for Eve's father... for it to go that far."

"You shoulda told me," Murdoch said. "A huntin' accident. A damned huntin' accident, and I made it out to be murder."

"An accident," Shaw murmured half under his breath. "All this time, I been looking for a killer and it was an accident."

"I told you it wasn't Poppa," Rebecca whispered. Shaw put his arm around her protectively, and she laid her head on his shoulder. "Can you forgive Bruce?"

"I can try," he rasped.

"None here is fit to judge," Fiona said, pushing past Shaw to stand beside Eve. "None of you. What Bruce did was wrong, but it wasn't mean-hearted, and he's paid for it. Bruce is as much my son as all the rest of you MacCade boys, and I mean to keep on lovin' him the way I have since he was a sprout."

Dagmar went to Campbell's side and murmured softly to him in broken English. After a moment or two, Rebecca's father nodded, and Corbett and Drum released him.

Rebecca glanced up at Shaw, puzzled. "Why is Dagmar..."

Shaw shook his head. "Guess there's more than a few secrets under this roof."

The widow leaned close and whispered in Rebecca's father's ear. He shook his head, but she cried, "Ya! Now ist time." She raised her ample chin and put out her hand to Noah. "Something I vould say," she declared. "Noah." She took Noah's hand. "Noah ist mine boy. Vhen he ist born..." Frustrated, she looked to Rebecca's grandmother.

"What she's trying to say is that Noah wasn't her husband's child. Because he was born the way he is, she didn't think she could take care of him. She was frightened and had other children to care for."

"I t'ink to give him to his fadder."

"But Poppa found Noah tied to a—"

"Ya, I tie him," Dagmar agreed. "But I vatch. I love t'is boy. I am vidow. T'ink I cannot find..."

"She thought she couldn't find another husband to raise her children if she had Noah," Grandma explained.

Rebecca shook her head and whispered to Shaw. "But Noah's father..."

"Shhh," he said, putting a finger to his lips.

"Noah's father already had a wife," Fiona said, looking at her husband.

Murdoch's face paled to the color of bone. "I didn't know," he said in a cracking voice. "Dagmar and me... I never knew she was with child. Or that she got rid of it."

"Is true," Dagmar said. "Murdoch ist goot man. I am goot vooman, but foolish. I vas lonely vidow. Just two times, ve vast veak."

"And you let Raeburn raise my son?" Murdoch bellowed. "Why didn't you tell me? I would have—"

"Vat, Murdoch? Vat you do?" Dagmar asked. "Vat ist done, ist done. I leave my Noah for you to..."

"To find," Grandma finished. "But instead of Murdoch, my Campbell came on the boy. He brought him home and raised him like a son."

"My son?" Murdoch managed. "All these years?"

"All these years," Fiona said. "A good man and a good neighbor like Campbell Raeburn takes your woods colt, a boy touched by God, and cares for him. And all you do is cause trouble for the man. You should be ashamed."

"If you knew, why didn't you tell me?" he demanded.

Fiona flushed. "I was too full of pride to have folks know that my husband skipped the traces. And I was ashamed that I'd been too busy that year to give my husband what he needed. I didn't want Noah then. I didn't want to look at his face every day, and know that you... to know that you had been with someone else."

She shook her head. "I was wrong, too. I was younger then, and quick to judge. I had my hands full with our own crew, and I'd miscarried of a little girl that winter."

Fiona MacCade smiled at Noah. "I wish I had gone and brought you home. I'd be proud to have you call me mother."

Murdoch's eyes were haunted as he searched the room, lingering on the faces of his sons and neighbors. Then he took two steps forward and stood staring at Rebecca's father. "Did you know who Noah's sire was?"

"Known it for years," he answered. "Dagmar told me. But it makes no difference. The Lord gave Noah to me. He's my son, and a Raeburn, heart and soul."

Murdoch nodded and extended his hand. "I owe you some long overdue thanks, Campbell Raeburn."

At first Rebecca's father didn't respond. No one in the church uttered a sound. She clung to Shaw's hand and waited, her heart in her throat.

Then, slowly, Poppa moved to meet Murdoch. "Guess we're a little long in the tooth to keep up this bickerin'," he said as they clasped hands. "Are we about even?"

"Even. If you quit cuttin' my fences and drivin' off my stock," Murdoch rumbled. "And give back Angel Crossing."

"You're never gettin' my place, Murdoch. Not you, not any of your kin. But it wasn't Raeburns that caused you trouble," her father protested. "I'll swear to it. Not me, nor none of my sons ever raided your place."

"Me!" Noah grinned broadly.

"He did it," Welsh said. "Me and Drum put him up to it. He cut fences, chased their cows. And once, he flung a skunk in their well, and another time he started a fire in Mr. MacCade's wheat."

"You, Noah?" Rebecca cried. "You rode over to the MacCades' and caused trouble?"

Beaming, he nodded. "Never catch Noah."

Rebecca whirled on the twins. "How could you? It's worse than if you did it yourselves."

Drummond and Welsh hung their heads.

Her father looked at Murdoch. "That apology goes both ways, I'm afraid. All I can say in my defense is that I didn't know. And I promise you, these boys of mine and I will have a little conversation about this matter."

Murdoch's broad face twitched; then he smiled, and the grin became a loud guffaw as he slapped Noah on the back. "What can you expect from a MacCade?" he howled. "My own pappy was born with horns and a tail!"