The Outlaw's Daughter by Paul Lederer | eBook

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The Outlaw's Daughter

By Paul Lederer

OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA

CHAPTER 1

The day was bright, sunny. Across the West Texas plains to the north there was a curtain of dark clouds, but these had been there for days, and seemed content to hold back and let summer progress in a peaceful manner. Half-dozing in the mottled shade cast by the pecan grove where he had drawn up to rest himself and his buckskin horse, Matt Holiday lay propped up on one elbow, watching the slow silver progress of the river.

Across the river was a group of kids who had a trot-line stretched across the river, fishing for catfish. He had seen them take two relatively small fish from their hooks – five- or six-pounders, at a guess. Just now they were paying little attention to their line as they poked, shrieked, kicked and wrestled away the summer day.

He was far enough away to be unable to hear the sound of the horsemen approaching the boys. They came into his line of vision and he glanced that way. Four men, letting their horses walk toward the river. Traveling men on thirsty mounts, Holiday was thinking. He saw them pause by the boys and ask a few questions. The kids, for their part looked up in reverence at the mounted, armed men who had taken the time to talk to them. They were more used to being ignored by adults.

Holiday sat up, yawned, glanced at his horse which was still munching dispassionately at the scattered clumps of dry grass, and pulled off his hat to scratch his head. When he again looked at the group across the river, the horsemen were riding off toward the north. They had taken one of the boys with them. The kid, wearing a straw hat, a shirt cut off at the elbows and twill pants looked back at his fishing companions and waved his hands in a frantic gesture. There was nothing the boys could do, so they simply stood staring after riders.

Holiday got to his feet. It did not look to him as if the boy was riding away willingly. He could be totally wrong about what he had only half-observed: it could be that the boy, after being scolded, was being taken home by his angry father. Holiday didn't think so.

He thought he had just witnessed an abduction.

Holiday stood watching the northward-bound riders, the group of boys staring after them, then he walked to his buckskin, tightened the cinches on his saddle and swung aboard, his face set, eyes narrowed with concentration and from the glare of the sun. He kneed the buckskin horse toward the river. Starting down the bank he found the going slippery. Upon reaching the river, he walked the horse through sucking red mud. Apparently the river had receded lately and quickly. The river itself was cool silver and blue as it made its way southward toward the Gulf of Mexico. The horse went up to its belly in water, Holiday doing all he could to keep his stirruped boots up out of the flowing river. They reached the far bank and again made their way through deep, clinging mud, then they climbed the bank to where the three remaining boys stood watching.

'Hello,' Matt said, drawing up before them. No one answered. There were three of them – all redheaded. All with pug noses and freckles. Each wore a fraying straw hat. They stood together in a row as if they had been organized by height.

'What's happened here?' Holiday asked the tallest of the three. At his feet was a large bucket containing four catfish. The boy looked toward the bucket, avoiding Matt's eyes.

What were they afraid of? Perhaps, he thought, they had skipped school or their chores to come fishing. A little more sternly, he said:

'Look, boys, I was watching. Did those men steal your friend away?' Silence. 'Or was one of the men his father, an uncle, older brother?'

'Will don' have no father,' the middle-sized boy said without looking up.

'Does so,' the smallest of the three said. 'He just got locked up in jail.'

'I never seen him,' offered the middle boy.

'Well I did, at Will's house once before he got locked up,' the other persisted. The middle boy shrugged.

'If he's locked up, it's the same as having no father, isn't it? Besides, that wasn't Will's father, was it, Howard?'

'No, it wasn't,' the oldest boy said, breaking his silence. Matt addressed that boy now.

'Where does Will live? Somebody has to tell his people what happened. His mother? Does he have a mother?'

'Sure, everybody's got a mother! Mrs Waverly is her name,' the middle boy said.

'Where's she live, then?' Holiday asked. 'I'll ride over and tell her what's happened.' And ask her a few questions of his own. For he had already known that the man who had taken Will was not his father. The boys seemed relieved that Matt Holiday was willing to deliver the bad news to Will's mother, leaving them out of the situation. Willingly, almost eagerly, they explained where Will's house was, though they argued among themselves about the easiest way to get there.

Holiday started his horse on along a roughly carved path toward the small collection of mostly adobe houses that lay on the outskirts of Bentley, Texas. Glancing back, he saw that the boys had picked up their fish and bucket and made a run for it. To the north the low dark clouds lay motionless above the foothills, their cast shadows staining the hills purple and blue.

He was of two minds about this. Should he have just charged after the abductors and tried to take the boy away from them? There were four of them, and besides he could not have been sure at first that anything wrong had occurred; now he was, but now the men were gone, and charging wildly after them seemed to be the worst way to handle matters. He would have to find out what Mrs Waverly knew.

There were no names, no numbers painted on the houses or the gateposts, but with the help of the boys' directions, he was able to find the Waverly house. A small white adobe with a plastered porch addition, it rested in the center of a dry-grass lot, appearing deserted as if it and its inhabitants had simply surrendered to fate and the passage of time. There were blankets over the windows as curtains, a weather-grayed wooden box held four withered rose bushes. Beside the house was a clothes-line. Dangling from the lines, fluttering in the dry breeze, was the usual assortment of household laundry. But none of it was men's clothing. Frank Waverly was being given his laundry by the state of Texas these days.

Matt Holiday approached the dilapidated house reluctantly. Waverly's wife had already taken a bad shock when Frank was arrested. Now it was Holiday's duty to inform the unhappy woman that her son had been snatched by persons unknown. He had ridden on much more pleasant errands in his time.

And on a few much, much worse. There was no place to tie up his horse, so he left the buckskin ground-hitched in front of the place. The animal was well-watered, well-fed. It was not the wandering sort, anyway. Matt took off his Stetson, wiped back his hair and approached the front door.

The door was open a few inches, probably to allow the breeze to circulate. There was the smell of cooking within – the strong odor of fried onions and what he thought was beef liver. He rapped twice on the doorsill and stood waiting, his eyes going northward to where the boy was now vanishing into the distances. Across the rutted road a goat bleated aggressively at Holiday as if he were an intruder occupying a part of its territory. Holiday knocked again, more determinedly. Still no one answered the door.

Not willing to depart, he nudged the door open more widely, using his boot toe, and called in. 'Hello! Anyone home!'

Despite signs of occupancy and the smells of cooking, there was still no answer. Holiday stepped into the house which was plain, sparsely decorated with Indian rugs scattered across the floor, some plain furniture and a crucifix suspended on the far wall. He called out again and this time drew a response.

The young-old woman, of the type that had not been long upon the plains, but long enough for the harsh land to have had time to wipe away hope and youth alike, stepped into the room, apparently from the kitchen, for she was wiping her hands on her apron. Her eyes were blue, startled, her motions birdlike, shy.

'Are you Will's mother?' Matt Holiday asked and watched the woman blanch, her knees seem to loosen.

'I'm Bertha Waverly.' Her eyes filled with sudden fear. 'What's happened? He's drowned, hasn't he? Drowned in the river over a few catfish?' Her hysteria was contained, but only by a great effort of will. Matt responded quickly.

'No, ma'am, he has not drowned. But there's something I must tell you. Please sit down.'

Nearly staggering, the woman made her way to a narrow, leather-bottomed chair where she arranged herself. Her pale, blue-veined hands were folded in her lap, her eyes were haunted, expecting no good news. Holiday thought that good news very seldom found its way to her door.

'What's happened, then?' she asked in a dry voice. She seemed already to expect the worst. Holding his hat in his hands, Matt told her, as gently as he could:

'Someone's taken your boy away. A bunch of men on horseback riding north. One of them may have been your husband.'

'Frank!' Her head wagged heavily, denying the possibility. 'He's in jail.'

'I know he is, or supposed to be. He may have broken out.'

'It couldn't have been Frank,' the woman insisted. 'He would have stopped by at least ...' Her voice faded as her confidence in that statement waned.

'It might not have been Frank Waverly,' Matt said, partly out of a wish to comfort the woman in her illusions. 'I only saw them from across the river, and I don't know Frank by sight in any case. I talked to three boys who were with Will. None of them knows Frank either, or at least they have not seen him for years.'

'What can I do?' the shrunken woman asked. Her thin graying hair was escaping from its roughly fashioned bun. Wispy tendrils of hair waved in the breeze coming through the doorway. Her watery eyes seemed to be focused on the crucifix on the wall.

'I am going to chase those men down,' Matt promised her. 'If I can, I'll bring Will home.'

'How can you ...?' her expression changed, her eyes narrowed. 'Who are you, mister? Why are you volunteering to help out? What's your business with my husband if it was Frank who took my son?'

Matt didn't answer. Instead he said, 'I'll give it my best, Mrs Waverly.'

She did not respond, did not have the chance to as an inner door opened and a young woman with a Henry repeating rifle in her hands emerged from the interior of the house.

'Why are you upsetting my mother?' the girl demanded. She was tall, slender in the way of horsewomen, with dark flowing hair and eyes that appeared black in this light.

'That wasn't my intention,' Matt answered. 'She would have suffered more if Will just vanished and did not come home night after night.'

'Maybe,' the girl admitted. She stepped forward a few paces. She was young, as Matt had known, but he could not guess her age. She might have been sixteen, eighteen, twenty – he was not good at judging a woman's years. She said, 'You saw this happen and you did nothing to stop it?'

'I was across the river. There was nothing I could have done.'

'You could have gone after them,' the girl argued.

'I wasn't sure what I had witnessed, who was involved.'

'But you are now? Then why are you standing here doing nothing while they're getting away?'

'I'll follow them; I'll find them,' Matt told her. The girl's eyes mocked him.

'How, Mr Busybody?' she demanded.

'Tracking them?'

'You're a good tracker, are you?'

'I'm fair. I've been known to track a man down.'

'In the rain?' the girl challenged. Matt glanced toward the door. Beyond it the sky held blue and clear.

'You didn't notice the clouds to the north?' she asked mockingly. 'They're not moving this way, but those men are riding toward them. With a purpose – once their tracks are wiped out by the rain, not a bloodhound or Comanche would be able to pick up their trail. You don't look to be either.'

'Serenity,' the old lady said, cautioning the girl. If this fiery young woman was named Serenity, someone had missed the mark wildly when christening her. 'He only wants to help.'

'Why?' Serenity asked skeptically. The old woman's eyes closed and she shook her head again.

'I don't know; I couldn't guess, but any help is better than none at all.'

'Maybe it is, maybe it isn't,' the defiant girl muttered. 'Let's find out. Come on, mister, let's get after them, and now!'

Matt wanted no company on this, and he would have argued the point if Serenity hadn't already been halfway to the door, grabbing a rain slicker from the coat tree in the corner of the room. She shot a challenging look at Holiday and asked, 'You coming along or not?'

Matt could only nod. This was not proceeding the way he had planned. He said goodbye to the old woman, who was too absorbed in her own thoughts to respond, and followed Serenity into the glare of the afternoon sunlight.

'Wait right here. I've got to get my horse,' she said, striding away before he had time to answer. Watching her walk away, he considered riding off and leaving her, but it would have done no good: Serenity would certainly have been able to catch up with him along the trail. Instead he waited with impatient resignation.

Serenity returned within fifteen minutes, astride a leggy roan with three white stockings and an evil gleam in its eye to match Serenity's own.

Swinging aboard the buckskin horse, Matt said, 'If we ride back to the river, I'm pretty sure I can pick up their tracks easily enough.'

'That'll make for slow going, mister,' she said brusquely as she spun her horse. 'There's no need for any of that pokey stuff. I know where they're heading, and if we don't hit bad weather, we might even be able to beat them there!'

CHAPTER 2

There was little enough time for talking as they rode on at a brisk pace across the plains, but plenty of that for conjecturing. Why was Serenity so certain that she knew where the men were headed? What was she to them? By now Matt was almost certain he knew who the men were, but how could Serenity seem so certain?

The land they crossed was mostly barren and rocky. Here and there were clumps of greasewood, stands of nopal cactus an occasional yucca, but the grass, what there was of it, was yellow and dry. It seemed a land unfit for anything, like much of the West Texas plains. Ahead the low dark clouds still hovered over the foothills, as if they had found a place to their liking and taken up residence there. The course the two riders now followed veered away from the river and it could no longer be seen or smelled. Given his choice Matt would have followed the river; water was scarce out here, and besides, that seemed to be the way the kidnappers would have chosen. Maybe that was one reason Serenity believed they might be able to outdistance the men toward their goal.

Wherever that might be. If she had led him astray, it would take a lot of backtracking even to have a hope of finding their trail again. And what if she was deliberately throwing Holiday off their trail?

Eventually, as they slowed their horses and Matt was able to make out the distant Guadalupe Mountains hunched low along the horizon, there was a chance to speak to the dark-haired, black-eyed girl.

'How far are we riding?' Matt asked.

'Maybe twenty more miles,' she replied without looking at him.

'Are you sure you know where they're headed?'

'I'm sure.'

'Serenity ... are you Frank Waverly's daughter?'

She glanced his way, smiling faintly. The expression was soon gone. When she shook her head it was as if she wished to dislodge the smile. 'No. My father was Bertha's first husband.'

'I see. So Will is your—'

'He's my brother,' Serenity said sharply. 'My true brother. I don't like it when people call him my half-brother. It makes everything sound so ... incomplete, somehow. He's never known a day in his life when I wasn't there for him. He's my brother, do you understand?'

Matt only nodded. He hadn't meant to rile the girl up.

They were much nearer to the hills now. Matt studied the shifting shadows of the clouds across the land. He could make out rain showers falling ahead. Sunlight occasionally struck through the cloud cover, brilliantly illuminating the creases and folds of the hills.

'We're not far south of New Mexico,' Matt commented.

'No,' Serenity said as if she had lost interest in any further conversation.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from The Outlaw's Daughter by Paul Lederer. Copyright © 2012 C.J. Sommers. Excerpted by permission of OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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