McKettrick's Choice. Linda Miller Lael

a bullet in that outlaw over at the undertaker’s and then display the corpse as a deterrent to those with criminal inclinations. He was a man to take harsh measures when he deemed them appropriate, which was often.

      The Captain arched one eyebrow. “Gabe Navarro’s woman?”

      Holt’s stomach soured, and he regarded his unfinished breakfast with mournful resignation. “Yes.”

      Walton leaned forward. “You the bearer of bad tidings, Mr. Cavanagh?” he asked. “Last I heard, you was up in the Arizona Territory someplace, building yourself another ranch.”

      “Gabe’s been tried and sentenced to hang, down in San Antonio,” Holt said. The details about Arizona could wait.

      The Captain narrowed his eyes. “The hell you say.”

      “I would have thought you’d have heard about it,” Holt said. “Word like that usually spreads fast.”

      “I’ve been in Mexico the last little while. Just came up here to collect a bounty or two.”

      “‘The wages of sin is death’?”

      The Captain smiled. He still had all his teeth. “You seen him, did you? Name was Jake Green. Robbed a freight wagon between here and Austin, and shot the driver in cold blood.”

      Holt glanced at the star on Walton’s chest. “Bounty hunters wear badges now?”

      “They do if the money’s right,” the Captain answered. He settled back in his chair, took a thoughtful sip of his coffee. “You gonna eat that grub or leave it sit?”

      Holt shoved the plate across the table, along with his fork and knife.

      The Captain speared a sausage link and ate it in two bites. Still chewing, he said, “Melina’s working on the Parkinson place, about five miles west of town. I’d be careful how you broach the subject of Gabe if I was you. She’s brewing up a baby, and she’s none too happy with him right now.”

      “I’ll take my chances,” Holt said.

      The Captain grinned and tucked into the eggs. “You always were a reckless sum-bitch,” he allowed. “It’s good to see you. Brings the good old days to mind.”

      The waitress returned, refilled the coffee cups and left again.

      “The good old days,” Holt reminisced with a wry smile. “Sleeping on the ground. Eating jerky and jackrabbit for every meal. Fighting Comanches for every inch of ground we crossed. And all for less money than Melina probably makes washing Mrs. Parkinson’s bloomers.”

      The Captain gave a hoot of laughter. “Made you tough,” he said.

      “You ever thought of going to San Antonio?” Holt inquired.

      Walton speared another link of sausage. “Not until you said Gabe was in the hoosegow. Then the idea got real attractive, all of the sudden. If they’re fixing to lynch him, he must have been charged with murder.”

      “Murder and horse thieving,” Holt confirmed.

      “Bullshit,” the Captain said. “Gabe never killed nobody that didn’t need killing. Probably not above helping himself to a horse now and again, though.”

      He paused to savor more coffee, then grunted with lusty satisfaction as he set the cup down again. “Who’s behind this monkey circus, anyhow?”

      “I’m not sure,” Holt said, “but I’d say it was a rancher named Isaac Templeton.”

      The name evidently registered with Walton. He sighed and shook his head, but whatever his misgivings, they didn’t seem to affect his appetite. “Now there’s more bad news,” he said. “When do you figure on heading back to San Antone?”

      “First thing tomorrow,” Holt answered, pulling a dollar from his pocket and laying it on the table for the bill. “In the meantime, I’d better get a horse and head for the Parkinson place.”

      Walton helped himself to the checkered napkin the waitress had left for Holt and wiped his mouth, leaving considerable egg yolk in his handlebar mustache. Then he unpinned the badge.

      “Damn,” he said. “The wages wasn’t much, but I’ll miss this job.”

      CHAPTER 11

      THE RANCH certainly wasn’t prepossessing in any way, Lorelei decided, taking in the property from the seat of Raul’s wagon. The house leaned to one side, and the barn had disintegrated to a pile of weathered board, but there was a well, and plenty of grass.

      Raul wiped his sweating face with the bandana around his neck. “Just over that hill,” he said, quite unnecessarily, gesturing to the east, “is Mr. Templeton’s place.”

      Lorelei had fixed her gaze on the far bank of a wide, deep stream, where a few cattle grazed. “And that’s Mr. Cavanagh’s northern boundary,” she said.

      “Sí,” Raul said, seeming to wilt in the heat. “It was—until he sold it to the man from Arizona.”

      Lorelei gathered her skirts and scrambled down off the wagon. “I’ll need a horse,” she said, pushing aside the thought that “the man from Arizona” was none other than Holt McKettrick.

      “What?” Raul asked, as if he hadn’t heard her correctly.

      “A horse,” Lorelei said, proceeding toward the ranch house. Perhaps Raul could shore up the walls. She could plant a garden, have the barn rebuilt and buy a few head of cattle.

      “But you don’t know how to ride,” Raul pointed out hastily, sounding worried as he left the wagon to follow her. “Watch where you step, señorita—there are snakes.”

      “I can learn to ride,” she said. “And I’m not afraid of snakes.”

      She approached the house. Her mother must have lived here. Played just outside the door, skipping rope, perhaps, or making mud-pies.

      She inspected the log walls, peered inside. There was only one room, with a rusted stove, warped wooden floors and evidence of mice, but with a little bracing and some sweeping, the place would be habitable.

      “Your father will never allow it,” Raul pleaded.

      “My father can just go whistle,” Lorelei replied, running a hand down the framework of the door. Sturdy.

      “You cannot live out here alone, señorita.”

      “I won’t be alone,” Lorelei said. “Angelina will come with me.”

      Raul crossed himself and muttered a prayer in rapid Spanish. That done, he pointed wildly toward the Templeton property, then across the wide stream, toward Mr. Cavanagh’s land. “There is a range war coming,” he told her frantically. “And you will be in the middle!”

      Lorelei shaded her eyes with one hand. “Mr. Cavanagh is a very nice man,” she said. “I’m sure he wouldn’t do anything violent.”

      “But I told you, señorita, he is not really the owner anymore.”

      Lorelei bit her lower lip. John Cavanagh was a man of peace. He worked hard and kept to himself. Holt McKettrick, on the other hand, was an unknown quantity. He might or might not make a good neighbor.

      “I will not permit a range war,” she said, after due consideration. “Mr. Templeton, Mr. Cavanagh and Mr. McKettrick will simply have to work things out between themselves.”

      “But, señorita—”

      Lorelei proceeded to the well. Tried in vain to hoist the heavy wooden cover.

      Raul moved it for her, and she peered down the shaft.

      “I see water down there,” she said. She squinted, and her stomach turned. “And a dead animal of some sort.”

      “Madre de Dios,” Raul whispered.