McKettrick's Choice - Linda Lael Miller [72]
“Damn,” Holt marveled. “She must have hid it here—the woman, I mean.”
Gingerly, Rafe tucked a finger under the front of the sodden diaper and peered inside. “We can stop calling him ‘it,’” he said. “This here is a little boy.”
Finding that baby alive made up for a lot, in Holt’s mind. There were still bodies to bury, and the task would be a grim one, but here was the proof that life will always find a way to push through. Reminded him of a wild-flower he’d seen once, in the high-country of Arizona, growing right up through a flat rock, with no apparent regard for impossibility.
“What are we going to do with him?” Rafe asked. It was a reasonable question, once you got past the obvious fact that they’d have to take the infant as far as the next town. In the meantime, he’d need feeding, and diapers.
“We ought to reach Laredo in a day or two,” Holt said.
“Maybe he’s got folks there.”
“And maybe he doesn’t,” Rafe replied gravely. He nodded toward the house. “Everything’s burned up. We don’t even know this family’s last name.”
“There ought to be some property records in Laredo. A deed or a homestead claim, maybe. Our part is to get him there. The law will do the rest.”
Rafe laid the baby back down in the straw, pulled off his bandana and set about unpinning the scrap of calico. The effort was an awkward one, but he managed the diaper change, and Holt was impressed.
“Maybe she left a letter or something,” Holt said, chagrined because he hadn’t been of any practical help.
“The boy’s mother, I mean.”
Rafe looked skeptical, holding the baby against one broad shoulder. “I don’t reckon she had time for that,” he said. “I’m trying not to think about how things might have turned out different if we’d gotten here sooner.”
Holt nodded. “Me, too,” he said quietly. Then he frowned. “Why do you figure she didn’t hide the little girls out here, too?”
Rafe shook his head. “Most likely, they were real scared, and raising a fuss. If they carried on, the raiders would have heard them and come right for this shed.”
Holt was still perplexed. “The missus must have been expecting somebody to come along later. He’d have died of starvation or exposure, left alone like that.”
“Maybe she didn’t think that far,” Rafe answered sadly. “It’s not like those red devils gave notice that they’d be stopping by to massacre everybody they ran across. Christ, I wish we’d been just an hour or two faster on the trail.”
Holt laid a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “We weren’t. That’s the fact of the matter. Even if we had been, there’s no guarantee we could have held them off. From the number of tracks out there, I’d say there were at least three dozen of them.”
“Comanches?” Rafe asked. Sometimes, raids like this were blamed on the Indians, when the real culprits were white men, with an ax of their own to grind. Arrows were easy enough to come by—even a schoolboy could make one—and any cold-hearted son of a bitch with a knife could scalp somebody.
“Probably,” Holt said. “The horses were unshod.”
They stepped out into the brutal sunshine, Holt having gathered what shovels and spades were available, Rafe bringing up the rear with the baby. The fire was dying down now, burning itself out. Just the same, it would be hours before they could safely remove the burned bodies and give them proper burial.
John’s wagon was rolling toward them, maybe a quarter of a mile distant, and raising plenty of dust. Captain Jack approached, squinting at the child.
“Well,” he said. “Look what you found. Poor little cuss.”
Holt nodded glumly and looked around for a good place to dig four graves. “We’d best get the holes ready,” he said.
The Captain cocked a thumb toward the cabin, just as the roof caved in. Sparks flew heavenward, the way Holt hoped the spirits of that woman and those two innocent little girls had done. “Smart lady,” the old man said. “She managed to