McKettrick's Choice. Linda Miller Lael

about its safekeeping.”

      The banker was a few horse-lengths behind. “Your son?” he squeaked.

      Holt swallowed a laugh.

      “Foster son,” John relented, having had his fun. “Holt’s taken his real daddy’s name—McKettrick—but he went by Cavanagh for a good part of his life.” He braced his work-worn hands on the edge of Sexton’s desk and leaned in. “You tell Mr. Templeton he’ll find Holt a sight harder to deal with than an old black man and a slow-witted girl.”

      “Mr. Templeton?” Sexton croaked. “What does he have to do with this?”

      “A whole lot, I reckon,” John said smoothly. “You ever think about punchin’ cattle for a livin’, Mr. Sexton? Mr. McKettrick, here, he’s hirin’. Lookin’ for thirty men or so. A season in the saddle might put some color in your cheeks.”

      “My knees are bad,” Sexton said fretfully.

      “I reckon your conscience smarts some, too,” John replied. “If you’ve got one, that is.” He turned to Holt, his eyes gleaming with the old spirit. “Best we be goin’. Tillie’ll be through at the general store, and there’s Gabe to be looked in on before we head back out to the ranch. Make sure he’s getting the meals my son arranged for, over to the Republic Hotel.”

      Sexton rallied. His train was still back a couple of stations. “Austin’s a long ways from here. You might want to reconsider that deposit, Mr. Cavanagh.”

      “Then again,” John answered lightly, “I might not.”

      Holt chuckled.

      “What about you, Mr. McKettrick?” Sexton asked anxiously, standing up again. Even on his feet, he was knee-high to a burro, but he was still steaming along. “You’ll need banking services, I’m sure.”

      Holt, in the process of turning away, paused. John had already gained the door.

      “You’ve got more guts than I would have given you credit for, Mr. Sexton,” he said. “Goodbye. And don’t forget to give my best regards to Isaac Templeton.”

      He joined John on the wooden sidewalk.

      “Damn,” John said jubilantly, “that felt good.”

      Holt laughed and slapped him on the back. “Let’s collect Tillie and pay Gabe a visit. How long do you figure we have before Templeton comes to call?”

      John made a show of taking out his watch. He’d fought on the Union side during the war, and the timepiece, a gift from his captain, was the only memento he’d kept from his days as a Buffalo Soldier, except, of course, for that chunk of cannonball lodged deep in his right thigh. “I reckon he’ll get word by sundown.”

      “You think he’ll order a raid on the herd?”

      Cavanagh shook his head. “Not without sizing you up first,” he said. “Mr. Templeton, he likes to have the facts in his possession before he makes a move.”

      They stepped into the cool dimness of the general store, and the typical mercantile smells of clean sawdust, saddle leather, onions and dust greeted them.

      Holt scanned the room for Tillie, found her standing alone at the counter, with a pile of goods stacked in front of her, while the clerk jawed with a cowboy a few feet away. Tillie might as well have been one of the outdated notices pinned to the wall for all the attention she was getting, and her eyes were huge as she watched Holt and her father approach.

      “What can I do for you—gentlemen?” the clerk inquired.

      “You can wait on the lady, for a start,” Holt said, with a nod toward Tillie.

      “I don’t see no lady,” the clerk replied. Scrawny little rooster.

      Holt smiled broadly, reached across the counter, took a good, firm hold on the man’s shirtfront and thrust him upward, off the floor. “Then there’s something wrong with your eyesight, my friend,” he drawled, as John stepped between him and the cowhand. “You might want to invest in a pair of those fine spectacles on display in the front window.”

      “Mac,” the clerk choked. “Ain’t you gonna do somethin’?”

      “No, sir,” Mac said cheerfully, and Holt turned his head long enough to take in the cowboy. “I reckon you’ve got this coming.” He turned easily, resting his weight against the counter. “You Holt McKettrick?” he asked.

      “I heard on the street that you might be looking for ranch hands.”

      Holt eased the clerk down onto the balls of his feet. “I might be,” he said.

      The clerk scrambled along the counter to face Tillie with a feverish smile. “Mornin’, ma’am,” he said. “What can I do for you today?”

      CHAPTER 6

      “MAC KAHILL,” the cowboy said, as Holt and John loaded Tillie’s purchases into the back of the buckboard. “You don’t remember me, do you?”

      “Can’t say as I do,” Holt replied, hoisting a fifty-pound bag of pinto beans off the sidewalk.

      “We rode together, a time or two,” Kahill told him.

      “I was part of Cap’n Jack Walton’s bunch.”

      Holt stopped, giving Kahill a thoroughly doubtful once-over. “You were a Ranger?”

      Kahill flashed a grin. “No. I just fetched and carried. Took care of the horses. I was fourteen at the time.”

      Holt squinted. “You were that towheaded kid with the freckles, always tripping over his feet and wiping his nose on his shirtsleeve?”

      Kahill laughed. “You recollect correctly,” he said. He turned to John, then to Tillie, touching the brim of his hat both times. “I apologize for your poor treatment in the general store, folks. I surely don’t countenance such deeds.”

      “It troubles me a little,” Holt told Kahill bluntly, “that you didn’t step in.”

      “I didn’t have to,” Kahill replied good-naturedly. “You did.”

      “I think we ought to hire him,” John said, rubbing his chin.

      The kid had tended horses on a few trips into Indian Territory. So what? That had been a long time back. Today, on the other hand, he’d been a party to Tillie’s mistreatment, if only indirectly, and it seemed mighty convenient, after the fact, to claim he’d been about to take matters in hand with the clerk. “Why?” Holt asked.

      “Because we’re desperate,” John said simply.

      Kahill’s grin didn’t slip. “I reckon I’ve had more enthusiastic welcomes in my time,” he confessed. “I’m good with a gun, I’ve herded my share of longhorns and I need a job.”

      “Thirty a month, a bed in the bunkhouse and grub,” Holt said grimly.

      “You provide your own horse and gear.”

      “Done,” Kahill said, and put out his hand.

      Holt hesitated, then extended his own.

      GABE LOOKED MORE like his old self than he had the day before. He was still in need of yellow soap, clean clothes and a week of good meals, but he was coming along.

      “That was a damn fine supper you sent over last night,” he said. “Thanks.” His gaze moved past Holt to John. Tillie was waiting up front, in the marshal’s office, the ass-end of a jail being no place for a woman.

      “How-do, Mr. Cavanagh. You’re lookin’ spry, for an old soldier.”

      He and John shook hands through the bars.

      “I reckon I’ll be returning the compliment,” John said, “once you’ve been out of this cage for a month or two.”