Forever, Victoria Read online

  Mason stood at the head of the team. “Doonie, help Clay with the baggage.”

  The younger boy grinned up cockily at Victoria and swaggered into the station. The serious twin, Clay, looked as if he wanted to apologize. Mason’s eyes missed nothing. Reluctantly Victoria climbed up on the wagon seat. Now she could see that a few bystanders had witnessed the scene and her face burned with embarrassment.

  “Hold the team, Clay, and I’ll help Pete with Nellie.”

  Victoria barely heard his words. For a second she was tempted to slap the reins against the horses’ backs and move away, but the saddle horses were tied to the wheels of the wagon. She sat, stiff with resentment, eyes straight ahead. Mason’s voice jarred her.

  “Move over so my sister can sit beside you.” He stood beside the wagon. The grinning twin had a young lady in his arms. She was wearing a blue cotton dress and matching bonnet, and looked shyly up at Victoria, her large blue eyes full of apprehension, as if she expected to be scolded.

  “I can ride in the back of the wagon, Mason,” she said in a soft slurred voice.

  “Too rough. You sit up here on this spring seat with Miss McKenna.” He guided her foot to the wagon wheel and she grasped the seat and pulled herself up. Mason’s arms held on to her waist while she eased herself down into the seat.

  “There,” she said and smoothed her skirt down over her legs with nervous hands. “Where’s Dora?”

  “Here I am. Can I ride up there, too?”

  Lordy! How many more are there? Victoria thought as she looked down into the eight-year-old’s face with a heavy sprinkling of freckles and a snaggle-tooth grin.

  “Sure, there’s room.” Mason lifted her up. “You can sit between Nellie and Miss McKenna. I don’t think she’ll bite you.”

  “Let’s get something straight, Mr. Mahaffey!” Anger burned in Victoria’s eyes and a hot flush flagged her high cheekbones. “First, I don’t appreciate your sarcasm, and second, when I get ready to bite someone it won’t be a child.” She looked closely at his impassive face, surprised to see no signs of anger. She continued in a more controlled voice. “And third, people who push themselves in where they’re not wanted can’t expect to be treated like honored guests.”

  “Very true,” he retorted. “If you expect to spend the night at the Double M, watch your tongue. You’ll be my guest.” She gasped, her face stiff with anger, her amber eyes sparking with rage. He turned away as if what she would say would be of no consequence. “Load up, boys, so we can get goin’.”

  “Nellie, I’m thirsty,” Dora whispered loudly.

  “Shhh.”

  Victoria felt the jolt as the baggage and boxes were loaded into the back of the wagon. She stared straight ahead, unable to look at this most overbearing and arrogant man. She could not shut off her ears, though. His voice held the deep ring of authority as he issued orders to his brothers and they jumped to do his bidding. He was used to giving orders and being obeyed, of that Victoria was sure. She was equally sure that this was absolutely the worst day of her life.

  A numbness heavier than a beaver cloak swathed her. She saw her hands on the reins and from long training automatically did what a driver would do. She slapped them against the horses’ backs and guided the wagon down the dusty road.

  On the way out of town she turned the team up a side street and stopped in front of the livery. She wound the reins around the brake and jumped down, ignoring Mason Mahaffey and his family.

  “Hello, Claude,” she called to the bent old man who came ambling out of the shed. “Do you mind if I water my team? It’s a long dusty ride back to the Double M.”

  “Ye know I don’t mind, Miss Victory. Just help yoreself. I’ll go ’n’ git ya a bucket a good fresh water so ya can wet yore own whistle afore ya go.”

  “Thank you, Claude.”

  She dipped a bucket of water from the trough and carried it to the horses. Mason and his brothers led their horses to the trough. Claude came with a bucket and a dipper. Victoria accepted a dipper full of water and drank thirstily, then refilled it and handed it up to the older girl on the wagon seat. Nellie gave the dipper to her young sister who emptied it, then handed it back to Victoria who refilled it for her.

  “Friends of yores, Miss Victory?” Claude jerked his head toward the watering trough.

  “Friends of mine?” Victoria said in a clear voice. “I never saw them before in my life.” She climbed up onto the seat. “Thanks, Claude. Next time I come in I’ll bring you a berry pie.”

  “’Bye now, Miss Victory. Ya keep an eye peeled. Lots a toughs on the road.”

  “Don’t worry, Claude. I’ve got my rifle under the seat. Y’haw!” She slapped the reins against the backs of the horses and they moved away at a fast clip.

  Victoria was glad when they left the rutted streets of the town and the road stretched out ahead of them. A slight breeze kicked up little eddies of dust along the trail, but did little to dissipate the afternoon heat— not that she noticed the heat. Her mind was swimming in a sea of confusion and bewilderment as if trying to awake from a hellish nightmare. She wished it were a nightmare, but the four horsemen who trailed the wagon were real, as were the two girls who sat silently on the seat beside her.

  The trail narrowed. The scattered boulders had grown fewer, the trees thicker. They wove through the slender black columns of pines, climbing higher and higher as they traveled in a westerly direction. At one place the trail narrowed still more and followed the natural contour of the wooded hillside. Here, for a short while, there was shade and relief from the glaring sun.

  “How much farther, Nellie? I’ve got to…you know…” Dora had moved as far away from Victoria as was possible on the narrow seat as she whispered to her sister.

  “I don’t know. Sit still and don’t think about it.” Nellie put her arm about the younger girl.

  “It isn’t like I thought it would be,” Dora murmured. “Mason said we’d be goin’ to a new home and we’d all be together again…and happy…and you ’n’ me would keep house.”

  “Shhh. We will. You’ll see.”

  “But she don’t like us.…”

  “Please, Dora!”

  “Well…it’s better than bein’ with Aunt Lily,” Dora said tiredly, “but I still got to…you know.”

  They reached the top of the hill and Victoria pulled up on the reins, stopping the team. Almost instantly Mason was at the side of the wagon, a questioning frown on his face.

  “What are you up to now?”

  “Your sister needs to go to the bushes,” she said with sarcastically heavy patience and stared straight into the eyes that held hers for a moment then shifted to Dora.

  The child stood up. “I’m sorry, Mason, I just can’t hold it!”

  Victoria held the reins up so Dora could crawl under them. Mason leaned from the saddle and lifted her to sit across his lap and turned the horse toward the trees. Victoria couldn’t hear what he was saying to the child, but his voice was calm and patient. When they returned he lifted Dora back on the wagon and looked at the other girl.

  “Nellie?” he said with a gentleness that caught Victoria by surprise and she looked at the girl fully for the first time. She was shaking her head vigorously and a rosy glow tinged her cheeks. “How much farther?” There was no gentleness in the voice that asked the question of Victoria.

  “An hour and a half,” she said crossly. “We’ll be there by sundown.”

  “This is the Outlaw Trail, isn’t it?” It was a question but he expected no answer. “I’ll ride ahead a ways. Pete and Clay will stay with you.”

  “They needn’t bother, Mr. Mahaffey. I’ve traveled this trail all my life and I expect every outlaw that travels it knows about me. I’ve never been bothered. I feel safer with them than with you.”

  “I wasn’t thinking about you, Miss McKenna. I was thinking about my sisters.” His cold, brittle eyes flicked across her face before he touched the brim of his hat and put his heels to his horse.
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  Victoria put the team in motion again, her nerves strung out as taut as a bowstring. The anger she had used to hold back the tears was about to desert her so she dredged up the words from the letter. They never failed to get her seething. I will be arriving September 16 to take possession of the property…It will be necessary for you to vacate.…

  “Why don’t you like us?” Dora’s voice broke into her thoughts.

  “Dora—no!” Nellie said sharply.

  The tears spurted and began to roll down Victoria’s cheeks. She was appalled. Oh, Lordy! I can’t bawl in front of these people. I just can’t! Her reasoning did nothing to stop the tears that flowed. So she turned her face away and tried to wipe them off on the sleeve of her shirt.

  “Don’t mind Dora. She doesn’t understand,” Nellie said softly, sympathetically.

  “And I suppose you do!” Victoria managed hoarsely.

  “Not all of it.”

  “You don’t understand any of it! I was born at the Double M, my mother died there. My pa worked himself to death to build that ranch. He didn’t mean for it to go to—to strangers!” She drew in a shaky breath. “Robert had no right to sell it to your brother.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Victoria expected anything but sympathy. The face she turned to Nellie was resentful, yet curious.

  “Why should you be sorry?” She choked back a sob then steadied her voice. “You have a family, brothers who will take care of you.”

  “I didn’t have Mason or the others until just a few months ago. I was alone, so were Dora and Doonie. The twins had each other.” Wide, candid eyes, blue, but not as deep a blue as Mason’s, looked earnestly at Victoria.

  “And where was Mr. Mason T. Mahaffey?” Victoria said with more sarcasm than she intended.

  “He was sent to England after the War. He didn’t know about Ma and Pa and Sarah and Ely being took with the cholera. They’d sent me and Dora and Doonie to Aunt Lily. Only the twins were left and they didn’t come down with it.” There was no flicker of emotion to break the calm mask, but Nellie’s hands betrayed her. They twisted and turned and clenched each other.

  “But Aunt Lily wouldn’t let Nellie and Doonie stay,” Dora said bluntly. Her small face set with resentment. “I hate Aunt Lily!”

  Nellie hugged her sister. “Ah, Dora, we don’t have to think about her anymore.”

  “Nellie had to go to Widder Leggett’s, and Doonie went to old Mr. Sunner. Doonie said old Mr. Sunner was mean ’n’ when Mason come to get him old Mr. Sunner wasn’t goin’ to let him go till Mason paid up his board, ’n’ Mason told him—”

  “Dora,” Nellie interrupted patiently. “Mason told us to forget about that.” She took off her bonnet. Her hands were small and slender and were visibly shaking.

  “How long since your folks died?” Victoria didn’t know why she asked the question.

  “Four years,” Nellie said softly. “But it seems forever.”

  The silence that followed was broken only by the jingle of the harnesses and the blowing of the horses. The terrain that opened before them was a succession of valleys divided by ridges crested with pines, their slopes sometimes dotted with clumps of aspen. The air was mercifully cooler. In the winter, snow filled the pass and it was impossible to get a wagon through. The Double M was isolated from mid December to mid March, except for an occasional trapper or outlaw seeking shelter for a few days. Marcus McKenna never turned anyone away, be he Indian or white man. The Double M was known up and down the Outlaw Trail that reached from northern Montana to the Mexican border as a place where a man could get a meal and no questions asked. Many believed this to be the reason for the uninterrupted peace at the Double M.

  Some two hundred miles north of the ranch was the outlaw hideout known as the Hole-in-the-Wall, sanctuary for gangs of cattle rustlers and thieves. South some one hundred and fifty miles was Brown’s Park, named for the settler Baptiste Brown. This isolated valley, a fur trapping center, was also a favorite hangout for rustlers who sometimes wintered their herds in the park before driving them south. The Outlaw Trail was a lawless area with a moral code of its own. It was every man for himself, but women and children were respected and cherished because there were so few of them. A man could be strung up quicker for molesting a good woman or harming a child than for robbing a bank. The outlaws themselves would dish out the punishment. Rugged canyon lands, secluded valleys, and easily defended narrow passages discouraged lawmen from entering the area and the only law was the law of the gun and whatever honor there was among thieves.

  Victoria tried to gather her scattered thoughts into some semblance of order. Nothing had gone as she had planned. Mason T. Mahaffey had simply overwhelmed her and she was leading him to her ranch like a mindless simpleton!

  Victoria’s father, a dreamer, had given no thought to the little things in life upon which fortunes are made and broken. He gave excellent advice but never applied it to himself. “Victoria,” he would say, “when in doubt, don’t. Don’t do anything until you think about it. That’s what lifts man above the animals.” He hadn’t thought about the possibility of Robert considering himself heir to the Double M and selling it out from under her. For the first time she felt a small surge of resentment toward her kindly, easygoing father, but it was quickly smothered by a large surge of loneliness and despair.

  “How much farther? I’m hungry.” Dora slumped against her sister.

  Oh, to be a child, Victoria thought, and have nothing to worry about except being thirsty, hungry, and having to go to the bushes! She glanced at the two girls huddled together on the seat beside her. They were the enemy. They were going to live in her house, sleep on her mother’s featherbeds, eat at the big oak table her father had made one long, cold winter. They didn’t look like anyone’s enemy. They looked tired and hot—and scared. They had a right to be scared! she thought angrily. One word from her, Victoria McKenna, and any one of a number of outlaws would shoot Mason Mahaffey from his saddle and her troubles would be over. Victoria was shocked at that thought. But why shouldn’t I think of all the possibilities? she reasoned. I’m alone, except for Stonewall. The other hands come and go, although Sage Harrington would stay in a minute if I asked him. Her mind clicked off the names of men she knew who would take up her cause against Mason Mahaffey if she made it known to them—Piney Kilborn, Slim Masters, Jade Coggins, Martin Beaman, John…

  “What’ll you do when we get there?” Dora asked Victoria with a child’s blunt curiosity.

  The voice jerked Victoria back to reality. “I’ll cook supper.” She forced herself to move her eyes from the backs of the sweating team and to look straight down at Dora. “What else can I do?” she asked numbly.

  “I dunno.” Dora gave her a gap-toothed grin. “I’m glad you’re not mad anymore and are goin’ to cook. I’m hungry.”

  CHAPTER

  * 2 *

  Trusting more to his horse than to himself, Mason rode over the crest of the hill and started the descent into the lower valley. He had deliberately chosen a mountain-bred mustang, a horse that had been running wild just a few months before. He liked a horse that was spooky, that would hear every sound, that could both see and hear better than a man. The view down the hill was masked by close-growing trees, blow-downs and rocks. He could make out a steep and narrow wagon track weaving among the rocks and trees.

  When Mason had bought the Double M he wasn’t told it was on the Outlaw Trail. He had learned that bit of information when he arrived in Denver. A chance encounter in London had led him to buy a ranch he knew little about.

  Mason had left his Colorado home to fight in the Union Army under General Grant, had been cited for bravery at Missionary Ridge and promoted to the rank of captain. When the war was over General Grant had urged him to remain in the Army. He could have his choice of assignments— anything from being a military attaché at the American embassy in Paris to fighting Apaches in the Arizona and New Mexico Territories. Mason declined. He couldn’t ex
actly see himself clicking his heels in Paris, and he longed to put fighting and killing behind him forever. As a favor to General Grant he agreed to one last mission. He would find and deliver to the British government an English privateer. The man had amassed great wealth by preying on English ships and was now living in luxury in America. General Grant had assured him it would be a profitable mission. The British were willing to pay handsomely for his services.