Eleven

Everything inside Jack, even his blood, seemed to still. He looked over at Angel. “What about her?” he said, hearing the tightness in his own voice.

Angel blinked, suddenly looking unsure of herself. Jack waited. Finally, she asked, “Is that her picture on the mantel above the fireplace?”

“Yep.”

“She’s … she’s a pretty woman.”

“Yep. She was.”

“You favor her.”

Sudden impatience, stirred with a dose of painful memory, had Jack snapping, “What do you want to know about her, Angel? Why are you even thinking about my mother?”

Angel’s eyes widened a fraction, then she stared down at her coffee. After a moment or two, she again looked up at him, her black eyes wide and innocent. “I don’t know. I just—what happened to her?”

His mother, the one person closest to his heart, was the last person Jack wanted to talk about. He turned away from Angel, seeking the quiet anonymity and the gentle washboard roll of the grass-covered hills. “She died a few days after Seth was born,” he finally gritted out.

He meant for those words to be the only ones he said as he sat there feeling the warm and gentle breeze, like a kiss, brush across his face. But then he heard himself say, “And there wasn’t a damned thing I could do to save her.”

A wordless quiet passed moment by moment, deepening with each second. A sad-sounding sniff came from Angel. Then she spoke. “I know something about that feeling. But … save her from what?”

Jack huffed out his breath, ready to tell her to drop it, but then her words sunk in. Who’d she mean that she hadn’t been able to save? His father? No, most likely her own mother. Now that he thought about it, he wondered what Virginia Devlin thought of her daughter being here … and why Angel hadn’t brought her here with her. But then he remembered the stories—Angel and Virginia didn’t get on well. No one had to tell him why.

Finally, and belatedly, Jack recognized Angel’s words for what they were. A rare insight into her feelings. And felt—silly as it sounded, even in his own mind—honored. So, he returned her barest of confidences with, “I couldn’t save her from bleeding to death.”

Angel pulled back some, her color blanching, her expression showing that she looked inward as she repeated, all but whispering, “Bleeding to death.”

Her reaction brought a frown to Jack’s face. Why would talking about his mother cause her to—Jack’s breath caught, his mind paused right there. Something happened to her mother. His frown deepened as his curiosity intensified. It was quite a leap, he knew, but one he felt more certain of, the longer he stared at Angel, the longer he entertained the thought. And began putting events together. Something had happened to her mother. His father went to Red River Station. And Angel was returning with him when he was killed.

Were these events connected to everything else that was happening? Was there a common thread he was missing? And if so, what was it?

Jack blinked, came back to the moment when Angel cleared her throat and took a sip of her coffee. In profile to him, her face revealed an arched brow, a high cheekbone, and a slender, curved jaw. Touched by her air of vulnerability, one not evident in her manner or her words, Jack felt a flood of compassion for her. He wanted nothing more than to hold her, to draw her over to his lap and wrap her in his embrace. But instead, he said “Angel?” and drew her black-eyed attention. “What happened to your mother?”

Her expression hardened, narrowing her eyes. But under her tan, she paled, a hurt cast settled itself around her eyes. Then she said, “She took ill and died. I buried her the same day I left Red River Station.”

And you’re going to act like you don’t give a damn, came Jack’s silent accusation. But what he said was, “I’m sorry for your loss. I didn’t know.”

She shrugged, sipped at her coffee. “No reason why you should.”

Watching her, wanting to shake her out of her air of toughness, wanting to break her until she cried it all out and healed herself—Look who’s talking, his inner voice railed—Jack cut off his thoughts and gave in to his own need to talk about his mother. And so, with no preface to his remarks, he said, “I was little more than five years old that spring. But I remember it well.”

She turned to him now, her dark eyes acknowledging his opening up. “What happened?” was her quiet question.

Jack felt his chest constrict, felt his heart thud dully … just as it did every time he thought of those awful days. Suddenly he found he had to speak rapidly and not give anything but the barest accounting. “Pa was gone to Red River Station—more than a three days’ ride away, as you know—when her time with Seth came early. I did what I could, what she told me. But … she lost too much blood. By the time Pa got home, she was all but dead. She died the next day.”

“Jesus,” Angel said softly. Then, “Who—Seth was just a tiny baby. Who … took care of him?”

“She did. Kept him in her bed, nursing him. Until the end.” Jack swallowed a lump in his throat. He’d never talked about this before with anyone. And had to wonder again why he was spilling his guts to Angel Devlin, even as he continued … without looking over at her. “But then—and this is the hell of it—that afternoon, when Pa’d no more than buried her and had to be wondering what he was supposed to do with a hungry baby, over that hill right there”—he pointed to it, in the distance—“came Old Mother.”

“Old Mother?” Angel repeated, confusion evident in her tone.

“Yeah,” Jack said, nodding and glancing over at her. “She wasn’t all that old then, of course. But that’s what she said to call her.”

“Well, who was she?”

Jack could almost grin at her childlike interest in his story. For some reason, her unbridled attention made the telling easier. “A Comanche woman. Don’t ask me where she came from. Or how she knew we needed her. But there she was. She walked in, like she knew the layout of the place, picked Seth up, and put him to her breast and fed him. It was the damnedest thing I ever saw. Pa and I just looked at each other.”

“Then what happened?” Angel now braced her forearm on her chair’s arm, her coffee mug all but dangling from her hand as she leaned toward him, her eyes wide.

“Well, nothing,” Jack said, grinning now and hating to disappoint her. But hating more that he was at the end of his story—or the only part he was willing to tell—and would lose her undivided attention. “She stayed for the next ten years or so, raising me and Seth. And then, one day, she just up and saddled a horse, saying it was time she left. And then, taking nothing with her, not even provisions, she rode back over that same hill. We never saw her again.”

Angel stared at him, as if he were lying to her. Then she blinked and fell back against her chair, mindful now of her coffee but slumping in her seat. “Well, I’ll be,” she commented, staring at the hills out front. “I don’t believe I’ve ever heard such a tale as that. Old Mother, huh?”

Jack grinned. “Yep. Old Mother.”

“Hmm,” was Angel’s final comment. Or so he thought. A moment later she broke the silence with, “You ever seen a big white wolf with blue eyes around here?”

Jack’s gut tightened. “Where—” he tried, but couldn’t say more. “What’d you see, Angel? Where?” he finally managed. If Angel—someone outside his family—was seeing her … then more trouble was about to come.

“Out back. In that meadow out there. Standing in the middle of those bluebonnets you told me about. Yesterday morning, I was looking out my window and saw it. I swear, it looked right at me and then howled. I felt like he—”

“She,” Jack said, interrupting her. Instantly he was sorry he had. He’d just confirmed his knowledge of Old Mother. Had he kept quiet, he could have denied the wolf’s existence. He could have told Angel she was imagining things. And then, he could have secretly watched over her, protecting her in a way she’d never let him do openly, he knew.

“She?” Angel finally repeated. “Then you’ve seen … her, too?”

“Yes. I’ve seen her.” I’ve lived with her, he added to himself, leaning down to place his coffee mug on the verandah’s worn wood floor. Then, with increased urgency driving him, Jack scooted his chair closer to Angel’s, took her mug from her, set it on the floor, and startled her by taking her hands in his.

Alarmed, she tried to yank her hands away. But Jack held on. “Angel, this is important. You must tell me exactly what you saw, exactly what she—the wolf—did. Exactly. And leave nothing out. Nothing.”

But Angel wasn’t about to be that cooperative, not right off, not just because he asked. Jack should have known that, but still it irritated him when she shook her head. “I already told you what it did. It’s just a wolf—”

“No, it’s not just a wolf.” Jack tightened his grip around her fingers, saw her brow knit, her mouth firm—no doubt with unremarked pain—and forced himself to relax some, even though he alone of the two of them knew the urgency needed. “She’s not just anything, Angel. You have no idea. In Red River Station, you never heard anything about the white wolf Old Mother … and my family?”

Angel frowned, looking askance at him. “White wolf Old Mother? But that’s the woman who—”

“I know.”

One dead moment passed another as Angel stared hard at him before again finding her voice. “Are you telling me, Jack Daltry, that the Comanche woman who raised you and your brother just up and one day rode off over that hill”—she pulled a hand out of his grip and pointed to the hill, all without looking away from him—“and turned into a white-furred, blue-eyed wolf?”

“No, I’m not,” Jack said honestly, soberly. After all, he had no real proof of that.

Angel lowered her arm, but only to grip her knee with her hand. “Then what are you saying?”

“I’m saying that if you’ll think about it, you’ll probably recall having heard about my family and Old Mother in Red River Station. About how the Comanche don’t bother us. And you’ll know I’m not lying. Now, think.”

“I don’t need to. I never heard such a tale as yours. Because if I had, I wouldn’t forget it.” Then she pulled her other hand out of his grip and stood up. “Folks in town didn’t spend a lot of time chatting with me. But still, something this strange? No, I would’ve gotten wind of it. And I didn’t. So I think you’re telling a tall tale. And shame on me for sitting here listening to it.” With that, she turned and stomped off, skirting around him and going inside, slamming the front door after her.

Jack flinched at the noise of the slammed door, but didn’t blame Angel a bit. If he hadn’t lived the story, hadn’t lived with Old Mother and been brought up in her people’s ways, and didn’t know the spiritual things the Comanche knew, he wouldn’t believe, either.

But still, Jack sat there staring out at the hills and trying to figure out what Old Mother’s renewed presence in his life—and apparently in Angel’s—meant for them both. One thing he did know, the white wolf’s showing herself to Angel confirmed for him something he’d only suspected before now. Angel Devlin’s fate was undeniably tangled up with the Daltrys’.

With that thought, Jack got up, picked up the two mugs, held them in one hand, and turned to go inside. But before he made it to the door, a prickly feeling stopped him, had his skin crawling, had the hairs at the back of his neck standing up. Awash with dread, almost afraid of what he’d see, given all their talk of the white wolf, Jack pivoted to face the open prairie beyond the ranch house yard. And found the source of his foreboding.

Surprise struck him in the gut, had him reaching for the firmness of a rough-cut beam that supported the overhanging roof on the verandah. He all but hung on to it for a long moment … watching … not believing.

Recovering some from the initial shock, he set the mugs on the floor, and then hustled down the verandah’s steps, all but leaping to the ground as he took off running, heading for the approaching riders.

*   *   *

From the front of the house came the sounds of the heavy door opening and closing. Back in the kitchen, Angel’s head came up, her hands stilled from her merciless kneading of the innocent bread dough rolled out on the floured chopping block in front of her. Cocking her head at an angle, she heard … sure enough … ever louder bootsteps scuffing across the wood floor, announcing his approach. So he’s come inside, has he?

She couldn’t have said how much time had passed since she’d left that lying Jack Daltry out on the verandah, but it hadn’t been long enough, she knew that much. And she’d be glad to tell him so when he got here. Angel glared at the empty kitchen-door frame, preparing for him to be standing there. But her courage failed her when his arrival became imminent. Quickly looking down, she attacked the dough again, telling herself she’d changed her mind. And would be damned if she’d give him five minutes of her time. Just see if she’d listen to any more of his tall tales. A Comanche woman who turned into a white wolf, for pity’s sake.

He’d probably sat out there on the verandah all this time, having a big laugh at her expense. Well, she hoped he’d enjoyed it because—he’s here. Angel’s breath caught, cutting off her thoughts. Even with her head down, and facing the entry as she did, she could see his boots and his legs, up to the knees. But not deigning to give him a word of acknowledgment, or an opening to tease her, she forced her attention back to her task and picked up the pace of her kneading, all but strangling the hapless dough.

“Angel?”

Her hands stilled, she kept her head down, concentrating on the breaddough … and feeling her heartbeat pick up. His voice sounded so flat. She hoped it was because of his guilt for stringing her along like he had. But a sixth sense told her something different. Even so, she didn’t look up. “What?”

“We have company.”

Now she raised her head, her eyes widening at his appearance. His face was pale, his knuckles white against the door frame he gripped. “Company?” she repeated, not liking the sounds of that, especially given the look on his face, and the way he’d said it. “Not Seth again?”

He shook his head. “No. Four Comanche braves. And two of my old hands. They’re hurt. I’ll need your help.” With that he stepped into the kitchen and set their coffee mugs down on the drop-leaf table.

Angel’s mind froze and her knees stiffened. Four Comanche braves. Just the words had the hair on her arms standing on end and her thoughts flitting to the renewed battles of late between the Indians and the U.S. Army. Her gaze flitted to his hip. No gun. “Shouldn’t we be reaching for weapons?”

Jack shook his head. “No need. They won’t harm us. I told you that outside.”

Was this more of his teasing, since Old Mother was a Comanche, as he’d said? Angel wondered. But she dismissed that notion immediately. One look at Jack’s hardened expression said he wasn’t teasing. And that this was no time for hesitation on her part. He’d also said something about two of his men being with the Comanches and being hurt.

“You going to help or not?” came his impatient bark.

Angel snapped to, realizing she’d done nothing but stare at him. “Yes,” she promptly replied, wiping her hands on her flour-dusty apron and reaching for its long ties at her neck and waist as she stepped around the chopping block. “I guess since the Comanches brought your men home, they’re not the ones who hurt ’em?”

“You guessed right,” Jack said. “Come on. Let’s go. Standing Elk and his men aren’t too happy about being here.”

“I don’t suppose they are,” Angel murmured, knowing the Comanche had no particular tenderness toward whites and their reservations. “Do you know what happened to your men?”

Jack looked into her eyes but stepped aside to allow her to precede him down the long, narrow hall. “No. I’m just glad these two are alive.”

Angel nodded, figuring he was thinking of the two dead men they’d found yesterday on their ride. Just then, his hand captured her elbow. Angel flinched in surprise, looking up at him as he stepped up to her side and hurried her along beside him. “Sorry, but I don’t want Standing Elk to get any unhappier.”

Angel swallowed. Neither did she. Jack’s long-legged strides carried them to the end of the hallway and into the great room, where they threaded their way around the furniture, working their way toward the … open front door. Hadn’t she heard Jack close it when he came in? Frowning, but not dwelling on that, Angel finally commented, “This is mighty curious, Jack. I’ve never heard of the Comanche carrying whites anywhere—except to an early grave.”

A wordless moment passed. Then, “That’s generally true. But Standing Elk said … Old Mother told them to take care of Lou and Boots and then to bring ’em here when they were able to travel.”

That did it. He was poking fun at her again. Angel stopped, staring up at him. Her jaw jutted out, her voice was singsong. “The Indian woman Old Mother? Or the white wolf Old Mother?”

Exasperated, Jack said “Angel, I know you don’t understand—”

“Which one, Jack?”

“The white wolf. In a vision their medicine man had. She told him where the braves would find Lou and Boots.”

“Well, that was mighty kind of her.” Angel’s sour expression belied her words. She pivoted on her heel, intending to return to the kitchen and her bread-making—and get away from him. “Damn you, Jack Daltry,” she threw over her shoulder. “With everything that’s going on around here, I’d think you—”

“Angel!”

The imperative tone of his voice spun her around. Another angry rebuke tipped against her tongue. But when she saw what Jack meant for her to see, she swallowed her words, gasping instead. Sure enough, four Comanche braves were entering the house, coming in single-file with two older, injured, and bandaged white men carried between them by their shoulders and legs. Obviously, they’d reopened the door to get the men inside.

“Merciful heavens,” Angel intoned, something she recalled her mother saying on more than one occasion. She then sought Jack’s gaze, questioning, asking for his direction. “Where do you want them?”

“Upstairs,” he said to her as he signaled to the braves and led the way.

Angel fell in line behind the tall, muscular Comanches, noting their long black hair, their air of silent superiority, and their careful handling of the two old men, both of whom were pale-faced and moaning. Grim of expression, not having the first idea what she could do to help, but knowing that, as a woman, she’d be asked to do so just the same, Angel hung back, giving the braves plenty of room to maneuver up the stairs.

As they carried the men up the stairs, the braves facing her glanced at her more than once. A tingling cold ran over Angel’s skin. The Comanches’ eyes could have been so much black glass for all they revealed of their thoughts or intentions.

Relief coursed through her when the injured men were laid together on the big bed at the end of the second-floor hallway and Jack turned to her, saying, “Stay here. I’ll see them out.” Angel had time only to nod her agreement with him before he stalked away, the four braves at his back.

She watched them file out, briefly entertaining the thought that she hoped Jack made it back in one piece. Then, she turned to the gray-haired and grizzled old men on the bed. And got a surprise. They were wide awake and pulling up to sitting positions.

“Them Co-manch gone yet?” asked the taller of the two, his voice gravelly but strong.

Somewhat taken aback, not knowing what to make of their apparently rapid recovery, Angel nodded. “Yes.”

The two men—one tall and skinny, the other short and wiry—exchanged looks of relief. Then they faced her again … and stared, as if just now realizing they didn’t know her. “Who’re you?” the tall, skinny one finally asked, even as he began unwinding a bandage from around his arm, exposed under a torn-away shirtsleeve.

With his question, Angel’s bemusement with their antics turned to stone. She hated to tell them her name. Would she have to endure sly looks and insults every time she said who she was? But, stiffening her spine, readying to defend herself, she said, “Angel Devlin.”

Not one bit of recognition crossed either of their faces before the taller one reached up to tug at a hat that wasn’t there and to say, “Pleased to meetcha, ma’am.”

Angel exhaled her relief at their unquestioning acceptance of her presence on the Circle D. She watched them swing their legs off opposite sides of the bed and hobble with limping gracelessness over to the window.

As they went, the taller one said, “Where’s Mr. Daltry? Not the boy, Jack. But his pa? He ain’t still over to Red River Station, is he? ’Cause he ain’t goin’ to like one bit our being in his bed. I don’t know what that fool kid was thinkin’, bringin’ us up here. We’ll just lick our wounds out in the bunkhouse, once them Co-manch get shut of the place.”

Angel had almost forgotten the question by the time the man finished speaking. Then she remembered … where was Mr. Daltry. “He’s not still at the station. He’s—” She caught herself. But they didn’t seem to notice her abrupt ending since they now were staring intently out the window.

She bit at her lip, realizing she couldn’t just blurt out that he was dead. Jack had said they were his drovers. But she suspected the two older men were much more than that to the Daltrys, given everything the tall one had just said, and given Jack’s care with them. But what piqued her interest the most was that they knew Mr. Daltry had gone to Red River Station. But apparently not the why of it because they hadn’t known who she was. Dang it. The one time she needed someone to know who she was, the one time their knowing could provide answers, they didn’t have a clue. But what else was new in this whole stinking mess?

Just then, the taller one turned again to her. “Did you say yet where Mr. Daltry is?”

“He’s … out back,” Angel settled on saying. “He won’t be back … for a while.” Then, she just had to ask … “Who are you?”

Pulling back the curtains, one man to either side of the glass pane as they peered out, the taller one again spoke for them. “I’m Boots Cornwell. This here’s Lou Montana. He don’t talk much.”

Probably just doesn’t get a chance, Angel thought, nodding as Lou Montana spared her a sweet, gap-toothed smile and a wave of his hand before poking at Boots’s arm and pointing to something outside. Boots nodded, remarking, “Yep, I see them heartless critters a-mountin’ their ponies, Lou. I’ll swear and be damned, them squaws of their’n liked to’ve killed us tryin’ to cure us, didn’t they?”

Not sure whether to frown or grin, Angel could contain herself no longer. “What’s going on here? Are you two hurt or not?”

The men, dressed in tattered denims and equally dirty flannel shirts, pivoted to face her. “We sure enough were, ma’am. But not so much now,” said Boots, his gray eyes wide, his expression respectful.

Amused again despite herself, Angel cocked her head and arched an eyebrow. “What happened to you two? Why were you with those Comanche?”

“Well, hard as it is to believe, ma’am—even for me and Lou here—them Co-manch as good as saved us. Just rode right up on us like they’d knowed we needed their help…”

Exactly what Jack said, was Angel’s startled thought. The hair stood up on her arms. The white wolf. Could it be true? Her mouth opened, the better to get air into her suddenly tightened chest. She blinked, coming back to the moment, to Boots’s continued explanation of events.

“… Now me and Lou know enough Co-manch lingo to get ourselves scalped, but I don’t mind tellin’ you, ma’am, that we couldn’t recognize a word they was sayin’ to us when they scooped us up right off the ground and carried us away. But you coulda knocked us over with one of them feathers they wear when all’s they did was doctor us and bring us back here … alive.” Wide-eyed, he stopped … apparently finished.

Angel exhaled her rising exasperation with his rambling tale. He still hadn’t told her what she needed to know. She decided to try again, this time being more specific in her questioning. “Mr. Cornwell, what happened to you … before the Comanche came along?”

“Oh. We was ambushed, is what we was.” Boots then turned to his friend. “Ain’t that right, Lou?”

Lou nodded, looking a bit simple as he stared at Angel but pointed at Boots, as if to say he agreed with him. Then “Yep,” he blurted.

Angel wanted to scream, and even feared she would. But she got no further than a frown with their names on it before the two men once again directed their attention outside, pulling back the curtain to peer down at the activity in the yard.

Just then, an unexpected tenderness—still a new emotion to her—assailed her, tugging at her heart. She exhaled her anger, ready to chuckle at them. Or perhaps, herself. How could she be mad at them? The poor old things were tattered, hurt, and scared breathless from their ordeal. And how many times in her life, Angel asked herself, had she been the same? How many times had she needed someone to care that she was, only to have no one take pity on her … except, of late, Wallace Daltry?

And these were his men. She needed to return the man’s favor to his hired hands. Yes, she still needed answers from them. After all, they represented the only links she had to what had gone on here. They might even know a name or a direction she and Jack could go to find answers. But she needed to ask gently … even if the notion of herself doing such a thing did go against the grain. But it was worth a try. Angel unlisted her hands and spoke up … kindly. “Did you see who ambushed you, Mr. Cornwell?”

Boots let go of the curtain to look back at her and scratch and rub at his balding pate. “No, I can’t rightly say that I did, ma’am. Had their bandannas over their faces, they did. But there was a passel of ’em that showed up here. Rustlers, I suppose. After the cattle. Weren’t no Injuns, that’s a fact. But whoever them ornery critters was, they dragged us off when we told ’em the cattle was already on the trail and then they shot us up pretty good.”

Even though her heart sank with his negative answers, answers that did not divulge the identities of the murdering thieves, skepticism born of Boots’s allegation that he and Lou Montana had been shot up drew a skeptic frown on Angel’s face. Her gaze slowly slipped over the two men. They looked hale and hardy enough to her. She met Boots Cornwell’s suddenly wavering gaze and reddening face.

“Well, leastwise, they meant to shoot us up,” he blurted. “Just nicked and grazed us some, is more like it, before them Co-manch rode up, a-yellin’ and a-hollerin’. Plumb scared them rustlers off. But still, me and Lou got enough injuries to give us a gawd-awful fever, that’s for sure. And I ain’t never seen the like of them poultices and medicines them squaws forced on us and into us.” He again turned to Lou for support. “Ain’t that right, Lou?”

Not surprisingly, Lou’s widened brown eyes and his frowning nod again verified Boots’s version of events.

Gawd-awful or not, Angel suspected the women’s remedies had saved these men’s lives. “When did all this happen?”

Boots shrugged. “Well, I lost track of time, what with the fever and all, but near as me and Lou could figger, once we come to, it was a good ten or more days ago.” Then he frowned, sending her a considering look. “Why you askin’, ma’am?”

Angel heard his question, saw his waiting stare, but momentarily turned her thoughts inward, making some calculations of her own. So, Lou and Boots had been shot up right before she arrived here. Right about the time Mr. Daltry was killed. If she considered those two events and the missing men and cattle from the Circle D—and those men she and Jack found yesterday—then yep, all those things were happening about the same time.

And, no doubt, being done by the same men. But she didn’t for a minute believe that cattle rustling was what lay at the bottom of events here. For one thing, rustlers who knew their business wouldn’t have killed off the most valuable of the lot, the breeding stock. They might have killed the men and the dogs, but not the horses, valuable cow ponies. No, cattle rustling didn’t explain much, especially the missing papers. Or Mr. Daltry’s murder, which she’d always said was personal, like a revenge killing.

So, something else, something a lot worse, something just plain evil, was behind all this. Her fearful thoughts chilled Angel’s blood as she entertained the question What could it be?

“Ma’am? You all right? You look a mite frownish around the edges.”

The sound of Boots’s voice snapped Angel back to the moment. “I’m fine. Just doing some figuring.”

“Figuring about what?” asked a deep male voice from behind her.