Michael didn’t get back until after dark and they all gathered around the table while he attacked the supper Elizabeth had saved for him. “ ‘Twas a long day without anything in my belly, a ghra,” he said. “Thank you for saving something for me.”
“What happened, Da?” Caitlin asked anxiously.
“The dog came running to meet me, barking like crazy, so I knew something was wrong right away. I thought maybe Eduardo had had an accident. I hoped it was only that.”
“But why didn’t Chino warn Eduardo? He might have escaped them.”
“My guess is that he was up with the sheep, Cait. And even if he had warned him, I doubt Eduardo would have left the flock. He would have stood his ground. No, I think they came on him so quickly that he didn’t even have time to fire his gun.” Michael took a sip of coffee and was silent for a minute. “ ‘Twas one of the hardest things I’ve done, bringing Eduardo to Elena’s house. He was a good man and a good friend to me.” Cait could see tears in her father’s eyes. “Damn Mackie and his men to hell,” he cursed softly. “Dia, but maybe I should have just given in months ago,” he added. “Eduardo would still be alive.”
“You made the right choice, Michael,” said Elizabeth, reaching across the table and taking his hand in hers. “Eduardo made a choice, too. He knew it was dangerous, but he stayed with us.”
“At least you can end it now, Da,” said Cait. “You have proof you can take to the sheriff.”
“What proof, Cait?” responded Michael wearily.
“Why, Eduardo was murdered, Da! You know who did it.”
“And who would that be?”
“Why, Juan Chavez, Da. He was up there, probably to kill Eduardo the day Sadie came along.”
“The sheriff will have to do something, Michael,” Elizabeth added in agreement with her daughter.
“I will go to town first thing in the morning, Elizabeth. I will tell him Eduardo was murdered. I’ll even tell him that Chavez was up there last week. But if he asks me, and he will, I’ll have to tell him that half my sheep were run off too. And he’ll most likely conclude that it was common rustling and that Eduardo died defending the flock.”
“But, Da, it is so clear,” Cait protested.
“I am sure as my name is Michael Joseph Burke that Mackie is responsible for this, Caitlin,” said Michael grimly. “But what proof do I have, even for an honest sheriff? Chavez, or whoever it was, was hardly going to leave a polite note, admitting it. No, whoever did it was very smart to run off the sheep.”
“I can’t believe we can’t do anything,” Cait protested.
“We can try to push the sheriff to investigate. And we can decide, right here and now, if we want to give in,” added Michael, looking at his wife and daughter and then over at Gabe.
“Sell the ranch, Da!”
“It was a good man they murdered, Cait. I’d sell if you wanted me to, Elizabeth, to prevent more bloodshed.” He looked over at his wife and Cait could see the pain in his eyes. They had worked so hard for what they had. She couldn’t bear the thought of them losing it.
“We’d have the horses and the sheep, a ghra,” added Michael.
“But no land, Michael. Where would we go? No, this is our home and I will not have a bully like Mackie drive us off it,” Elizabeth replied in a voice shaking with grief and anger.
“This could be his last attempt to scare us off,” Michael speculated hopefully. “Even Mackie would have a hard time explaining an injury to me or my family.” He hesitated. “Cait, what do you say?”
“I say we stay, Da,” she answered fiercely.
“Gabe? I could well understand if ye wanted to change your mind and leave and I’d not blame you one bit. If he pushes me any further it will come to fighting, for I am not going to take any more from him and his hired dogs,” Michael added.
“I’m in, Mr. Burke,” said Gabe quietly. “I’m tired of wandering. I want to settle down here. As long as you need a wrangler, I’m yours.”
“As long as I’ve got horses, I’ll need you, Gabe,” Michael answered with a grateful smile. “Well, Miss Sarah Ellen, we’d better put you on the next stage back to Texas.”
“Oh, no, Mr. Burke. Unless I am a burden as a guest, I want to stay till this is all settled. I can’t leave now, not knowing what might happen to Gabe,” she added.
“You are welcome here as long as you like,” said Elizabeth. “We just don’t want you to be in any danger.”
“I’m not afraid, Mrs. Burke.”
“Well, then, that’s settled,” said Michael. “And a good thing it is and a relief to me, to know that you’ll be safe back east, Cait, in just a few weeks.”
“Yes,” said Elizabeth, giving her daughter a quick hug. “I have been dreading your leaving, but now I am relieved you will be away from all of this.”
Cait had been so caught up in her determination that her family not give in to Mackie, she had actually forgotten that she herself was leaving anyway. That in less than three weeks she’d be on a train to Philadelphia with Henry. As she helped her mother with the dishes, she realized that Sadie and Gabe, two strangers, would be here with her parents, taking on a fight that did not really belong to them while she was teaching young women the finer points of English literature. All at once it seemed so unimportant what interpretation one placed on Jane’s decision to return to Mr. Rochester, compared to the life and death reality that she would be leaving behind.
Later, as she got herself ready for bed, she felt almost torn in half. The East was where she had decided to build a new home with Henry. A home where her horizons would be expanded, where she would have access to theater and music. A home that would not be threatened by the harsh realities of life in New Mexico: the constant struggle for survival, the harshness of the desert, brutal men like Mackie.
But to leave it all behind now, when the two people she loved most were threatened? How could she do that? This was the home of her childhood: the ranch, the desert, the mountains. She loved it all, even every grain of the red dust that got into everything.
She sat by her window awhile, watching the stars come out, one by one and then in clusters. It was a moonless night, so she could not see the mountains, but she knew they were there. How could she leave them? Yet how could she stay? She was promised to Henry. She loved Henry too, didn’t she? Surely a grown-up woman would be able to leave her parents behind, no matter how difficult the situation, if she loved her fiancé?
She closed her eyes and pictured Henry’s face. She was sure she could imagine his response to Eduardo’s death. He’d want first to protect her, to get her out of there and back east where it was safe, where disputes were settled in court, not with threats and violence. What if she told him she wanted to stay until things were settled one way or the other? That she needed to be with her parents. That this was her home and she couldn’t leave while it was being threatened. Could he understand? If she loved him, wouldn’t she want to be with him, no matter how hard it was to leave? Even her parents wanted her out of it. “Home is where the heart is.” The old adage came to her mind. Where was her heart?
She couldn’t sleep, not in this state. She threw on her old blue flannel wrapper and tiptoed quietly down the stairs. The nights were growing a little cooler now as fall approached and the stars burned bright and clear above her as she made her way to the near pasture where she perched on the fence. She could hear the horses stirring and without thinking, gave a low-pitched whistle. It was Gabe’s whistle, not hers.
She heard the horse before she could see him. He gave a little snort as he headed for the fence and realized there was no Gabe and therefore no oats. Yet he didn’t back away when she held out her hand, but thrust his muzzle into it hopefully. Cait slipped down next to him, half expecting him to shy away, but as though sensing her mood, he came closer and rested his muzzle on her shoulder, just as she’d seen Finn do with her father. It was as though Sky was trying to comfort her and the tears she had been holding back all evening finally came. She leaned against his shoulder, crying into it and the miracle was that he let her.
“You’ve forgiven me, haven’t you?” she whispered as her tears finally stopped. He turned his head and whuffed a few breaths down her neck. She took a deep shuddering breath and ran her hand gently up his neck. She expected him to back away, but he stayed close and butted her with his head as if to say: “Are you all right now?”
“How can I leave?” she whispered. “I do care for Henry, but not enough. Not the way a wife should, I am afraid. I can’t leave Ma and Da and ‘cleave to my husband,’ ” she said with a little sobbing laugh.
The word itself was strange. To cleave to Henry, to unite with him in that profound way seemed to mean that she must tear herself away from all she loved. And that felt like taking an ax and cleaving her heart in two.
“I can’t leave,” she told Sky quietly. “Not now. I don’t know if Henry can understand. I don’t know that I understand.”
Sky nodded up and down as if he had understood everything she had said. She smiled and then froze as she heard someone coming up behind her.
“Were you planning to ride him again?” Gabe’s voice came out of the darkness. He said it teasingly, but she was so startled that she couldn’t hear that.
“No, Mr. Hart, you needn’t worry that I’d do anything so foolish again,” she responded in a quiet voice, turning to face him. Gabe was standing on the other side of the fence, his gun in his hand. “I didn’t really think you were, Miss Cait,” he said apologetically. “But I heard someone out here and thought I’d better check.”
He bolstered his gun in such an easy practiced movement and Cait suddenly realized that there was a side of Gabe Hart she didn’t know at all.
“I couldn’t sleep,” she explained. “Not after Eduardo.”
“Come on, let me get you back to the house,” he said, leaning over the fence and extending a hand to her. “You’ll catch yourself a death, as my ma used to say,” he added as he saw her shiver.
Cait reached out and took his hand, grateful for his support. It was awkward climbing in her wrapper and as it was, her robe caught on the fence and pulled away from her shoulders.
“Here, Miss Cait,” said Gabe, as he released it and draped it across her shoulders.
“Thank you, Mr. Hart,” she said, pulling it closed.
“It looks like Sky is worried about you,” he added as the horse tried to nuzzle Cait’s neck through the fence.
“I think we are back to trusting each other,” she said gratefully. “Though he was disappointed at first that it wasn’t you with a bucket of oats.”
“You’d best be inside, Miss Cait. Don’t you worry about anything,” he added. “Your father and mother will be all right. I am sure this is Mackie’s last try and all will be quiet after you leave.”
“You can’t be sure of anything where Mackie and Chavez are concerned and you know that, Mr. Hart. And I am not leaving,” she added quietly. She didn’t quite know why she was telling Gabe Hart before her parents, but it was said before she thought it out.
“What do you mean, not leaving?”
“Just what I said, Mr. Hart. I can’t go in the middle of all this.”
“But Mr. Beecham…he’ll be back in a few weeks.”
“I know, and I hope he will understand.”
“You’ll put off your wedding then?”
Caitlin stopped and looked up at Gabe. “I am not sure of anything anymore, Mr. Hart. Except one thing: this is my home and I will not leave it while it is being threatened.”
Gabe heard both the tears and determination in her voice. It must have been a hard decision for her to make. The girl he had thought Caitlin Burke to be most likely would have been heartbroken, but she would have left with her Henry. But this was not a girl’s decision, it was a woman’s.
They walked in silence until they reached the house.
“Good night, Mr. Hart,” whispered Cait.
“I am glad to hear you are staying, Miss Cait,” he whispered back. Cait tiptoed up the stairs, wondering why his words warmed her so.