McKettrick's Choice - Linda Lael Miller [108]
“Better you than me,” Holt grumbled, and took another bite of pie.
“You’re scared she’ll get hurt out there on the trail, aren’t you?”
He remembered the night he’d pulled all those leeches off her, and felt a little better. “No,” he said.
“Not as long as you’ve got a breath in you, anyhow?” Heddy prompted.
“I’ve got a friend in jail in San Antonio, set to hang in less than a month,” Holt ranted, as if she hadn’t spoken.
“John’s going to lose his ranch if I don’t help him rebuild his herd, and even then he’s got Templeton to deal with. I can’t find Frank Corrales. Rafe’s down here, risking his scalp to help, when he ought to be on the Triple M with his wife and child. I’ve got a bunch of bunglers, drunks and petty thieves for cowhands, and that woman wants to handpick every single head of beef she buys!”
Heddy sat calmly on the chopping block, still grinning. Her big, work-reddened hands rested serenely on her broad thighs. “I’ve knowed you to handle a heck of a lot worse,” she said. “How ’bout that time those renegade Comanches jumped you and Gabe outside of Crystal City? Killed your horses, if I remember correct, and the two of you barely got out of there with your hides still on. Walked across near forty miles of desert in the bargain. If I’d heard that story from anybody but you, I’d have figured it for a tall tale, but it was you that told me, Holt. And you weren’t scared, neither. Just mad as hops over them dead horses.”
Holt looked away, pretended an interest in the chicken coop. The pie had gone sour on his tongue, so he gave the rest of it to Sorrowful. “That was different,” he said.
“Why? Cause it was you that might have been scalped, skinned or God knows what else, and not Lorelei?”
Holt was still holding the pie plate, and he would have liked to send it sailing across the yard, in pure frustration, but he knew Heddy prized her dishes, so he refrained. “She’s got no idea what those savages can do to a woman,” he said, miserably and after a long silence. “Do you know where we found that baby in there, Heddy?”
“Tillie told me,” Heddy said. “It’s a shame about those folks, murdered like that, but it happens all the time, Holt, and you know it. Them settlers know what they’re riskin’ when they stake out a claim in the middle of Comanche country.”
“Do they?” Holt mused, and handed the plate over to Heddy for safekeeping. He rubbed his chin with one hand. “There were two little girls, Heddy. Their mother shot them, and then herself—”
“Let it go, Holt,” Heddy told him, in a tone as close to gentle as he’d ever heard her use. “The boy’s alive. That’s what matters now. And you can’t keep Lorelei back from whatever she means to do. How to live her life, that’s her choice to make.”
He didn’t say anything. Didn’t trust himself to sound sensible.
“Why’d you let her come along in the first place,” Heddy asked, hoisting herself to her feet with a loud sigh, “if you were so all-fired worried about her?”
“She wanted those damn cattle. She’s got some hare-brained idea about starting up a ranch on a little patch of ground she managed to get hold of, up by San Antonio. She would have followed us, on her own, and gotten herself killed, one way or another.”
“So if you leave her here, you figure she won’t stay put?”
“I know she won’t.”
“Then I guess you’d better stop fussin’ over it and get on with your business,” Heddy advised. “Like you just told me, you’ve got plenty to do without tryin’ to hogtie Lorelei and get her to see things your way.” With that, she headed for the house, the plate in one hand, Sorrowful galloping after her, probably hoping for more pie.
He stayed outside a while, and when he’d cooled off enough to go back into the kitchen, he found Rafe, the Captain and Lorelei playing poker at the table. John looked on, sipping his evening cup of coffee.
Standing behind Lorelei, Holt saw that she’d drawn a lousy hand. Moreover, she didn’t seem to realize it was lousy, for she pushed three