In Honor's Defense Page 2

  Shaking off her cynicism and suspicion before he could sense them, Damaris brightened her smile. “Be careful.”

  He shrugged as if to dislodge her concern before it could settle on his shoulders, then disappeared down the hall. The front door slammed a moment later.

  Damaris sighed. Someday he would accept her affection. Return it, even. After all, love was the strongest force on earth. Because it wasn’t of earth. It was divine. God’s very nature. It would win the day eventually, if she held true to her course. She must focus on the outcome, not on memories of salt in her tea or frogs on her face.

  An involuntary recollection surfaced of slimy amphibian bellies against her lips and sticky feet massaging her chin. One frog had even fallen inside her mouth when she woke and gasped in fright. Damaris shuddered. She’d used half a packet of tooth powder that morning, trying to erase the taste and feel of the creature. Thank heaven Nathaniel had yet to repeat the same prank twice. She didn’t think she could survive a second amphibious encounter.

  Never mind all that, though. She had apples to fetch. She wasn’t about to turn down her nephew’s first request, not when it was so easily granted.

  Leaving her bread to finish cooling, Damaris marched over to the root cellar door built into the kitchen’s floorboards. She bent down and hefted it open. Then, sweeping her skirt aside so she could watch where she placed her feet on the ladder rungs, she climbed down into the cool, damp cellar and walked over to the bushel basket of apples in the far corner near the shelves of canned goods. Taking an apple in hand, she squeezed it gently, checking for bruises. She wanted to use the very best. Finding a soft spot on that one, she placed the apple back in the basket and reached for a second. As her fingers closed around the fruit, a shadow fell across the room.

  Bang! The cellar door slammed closed. Everything went black.

  “Nathaniel!” Damaris dropped the apple and ran toward the ladder.

  Surely he wouldn’t trap her down here. He was mischievous, but he wasn’t mean. Unless . . . could this be retaliation for his window?

  He’d been sneaking out at night despite her urgings that he stop. He gave no heed to her insistence that being out after dark wasn’t safe. Arguing him into her way of thinking hadn’t worked, yet she couldn’t call herself a responsible guardian without doing something to stop him. So yesterday she’d nailed his window shut from the outside, hoping that the hindrance would at least make him stop and think before running off into the night. He hadn’t said anything about it this morning at breakfast, just rushed off to school like normal. She’d thought he hadn’t discovered what she’d done.

  Obviously, she’d been wrong.

  “All right, Nathaniel. You’ve made your point,” she called as she felt her way through the pitch black, seeking the ladder. “You can let me out now.”

  Something scraped above her. Something that sounded like table legs on floorboards. Then a thud. Directly above her head.

  “I’ll make ya a deal, Aunt Maris.” Nathaniel’s voice echoed through the floor. Tight. Ominous. “You get yourself outta the cellar before suppertime, and I’ll stop using my window as a door. But if you’re still trapped when I get home for supper, you let me go wherever I want, whenever I want from now on without trying to stop me.”

  She shook her head. “I can’t make that deal. It’s my job to protect you.”

  “No, it ain’t. It’s my pa’s job, but he ain’t here no more, so now I take care of myself!”

  Footsteps pounded, then faded away.

  “Nathaniel!”

  A door slammed.

  He’d left her here. Trapped. In the dark.

  The old, timid Damaris would have sat on the dirt floor and wept. Texas Damaris, however, had more grit. Weeping wouldn’t get her out of this cellar. Effort and ingenuity would.

  Using the pinpricks of light that outlined the square of the trap door as her guide, Damaris centered herself beneath it and waved her arms until she knocked into the ladder. Grabbing hold of the sides, she fit her foot to the bottom rung and climbed. A few steps up, she reached for the door handle and pushed. It didn’t budge. She climbed higher, bending her head forward and hunching her shoulders until her upper back pressed against the door.

  Please, Lord, let this work.

  Gritting her teeth, she pushed with her legs as hard as she could. The door moved. Not much, but it moved. She tried again, her grunt of effort nearly becoming a scream.

  To no avail. The door moved an inch. Maybe less. The table he’d positioned on top was too heavy.

  All right, so effort and ingenuity based on brute strength didn’t work when one happened to be a woman with muscles accustomed more to needle pushing than table lifting. She’d have to make do with Option Two. Patience.

  Her real battle wasn’t against wood and hinges. Her opponent was a stubborn, angry, heartbroken boy, and she couldn’t afford to lose. Not when Nathaniel’s well-being lay in the balance. She might be helpless to get out of this hole, but she could control how her nephew found her when next they met. His aunt Maris would not be weeping and distraught. Nor would she be defeated and hurt. She wouldn’t even be bristling with anger and indignation.

  No, Nathaniel would find her calm, smiling, and ready to make him the best fried apples he’d ever tasted.

  The strategy of turning the other cheek. The Lord endorsed it, so it must work.

  All she had to do was not go crazy in the meantime, imagining the various creepy-crawly things that dwelled in cellars. Things that came out of their holes when the lights went out.

  Sitting on the bottom rung, Damaris wrapped her skirt tightly around her legs and hugged her arms across her chest. It would only be for an hour or two. She could manage.

  A creak echoed from the corner. Her gaze darted that way, but her vision couldn’t penetrate the darkness.

  Tiny tapping sounds clicked behind her. She drew her legs closer to her body and began to hum.

  She could do this. They were just noises. Magnified by the dark.

  Something itched the top of her hair. She shook her head and fluttered a hand over her bun, encountering nothing but hair and pins.

  She could do this.

  Something tickled her nape. She jumped up from the ladder and wiggled from head to toe.

  Perhaps patience wasn’t a viable option after all. As she slapped at the itchy spot on the back of her neck, Damaris fervently began praying for an Option Three.

  CHAPTER

  TWO

  Luke Davenport rode up to the ranch house on the Triple G spread, holding Titan to a walk so he could scan his surroundings as he approached. He’d noticed a neighbor to the west, a couple of farms to the north, closer to Madisonville, but nothing developed to the south. The rustlers probably came and went from that direction.

  His horse’s ears pricked, and Luke leaned forward slightly to pat the big fella’s neck. “Yep,” he murmured. “I see him.”

  A man stood in the shadows of the porch, rifle in hand.

  Luke signaled Titan to halt. The big sorrel immediately obeyed, seeming to sense his master’s desire even before Luke tugged the reins.

  Titan was one of the first horses at Gringolet that Luke had broken to saddle after his former captain took over running the respected breeding farm. When Matt Hanger married and declared Hanger’s Horsemen officially retired, he’d given all of the Horsemen jobs at the farm, training horses for the army and other local buyers.

  Luke liked the work well enough, especially since Matt assigned him the wildest animals to saddle break. The wilder the better, as far as he was concerned. He loved pitting himself against a worthy opponent and giving his own wildness an outlet. Something he’d missed since leaving the cavalry. Riding with the Horsemen had scratched the itch. Chasing bandits, dodging bullets, and infiltrating outlaw gangs kept a man sharp. On top of his game. The military had channeled his recklessness and given it purpose. Then Matt had honed that purpose into a godly mission, protecting the lives and property of decent folk from the wickedness of unscrupulous men. But lately, Luke’s sense of purpose had dulled. Like a saber no longer used for battle, his reason for existence was deteriorating. Matt and the others might be content to hang their swords on the wall as a memento of days gone by, but Luke had nothing else. Who was he if not a warrior?

  Terrified to contemplate the dark void that yawned wide and empty in answer to that question, Luke had snagged the first available excuse to get back in the action. Wilson Grimes, a trooper who had served under the captain back in their cavalry days, had written to Matt, asking if the Horsemen could look into a rustling problem his brother was facing in Madison County. Luke had volunteered for the job before Matt could even finish reading the letter.

  He knew he’d be on his own this time. No Horsemen were available to watch his back, but he’d been on his own before. He’d manage. His friends had more important places to be at the moment. Matt’s wife was heavy with their first child, mere weeks from delivering. Jonah had a new bride to keep happy and a ranch to get off the ground. And Wallace wore a deputy’s badge now, keeping peace for the good folks of Kingsland. None could just pick up and leave at a moment’s notice. None but Luke.

  “Hello, at the house,” he called. “Name’s Luke Davenport. I’m here to see Oliver Grimes. Matthew Hanger sent me.”

  The man on the front porch stepped out of the shadows, a smile stretching across his face as his rifle barrel dropped to point at the ground. “Mr. Davenport! Welcome.” He hurried down the porch steps and strode out to where Luke waited. “I can’t tell you how glad I am to have you here. Please, come inside. I’ll have one of my men see to your horse.” He whistled, and an older fellow emerged from the barn, his bowlegged gait wide enough for a baby buffalo to
scamper through. “Quincy, see to Mr. Davenport’s horse, would you?”

  “Sure thing, Boss.” The fellow ambled up as Luke dismounted. “Fine-lookin’ horse. What’s his name?”

  “Titan.” Luke patted his gelding’s neck, then handed the reins to the old cowhand, whose eyes glowed with admiration.

  “Fittin’,” Quincy said, his experienced gaze cataloging the animal’s features. “He’s gotta be, what, seventeen hands?”

  Luke grinned. “Seventeen-two.” With Luke’s own height reaching four inches over six feet, he needed a mount to match.

  Quincy whistled softly. “Woo-ee. I’ll prob’ly need the stepladder to unsaddle him.”

  “Just loosen his girth and give him some water for now,” Luke said. “I’ll want to ride the property line after your boss fills me in on what’s been goin’ on around here lately.”

  Quincy nodded. “Will do.” His smile faded into a solemn expression as he met his boss’s eye. He nodded to both men. “Titan will be ready when ya need him.”

  Luke fingered his hat brim. “Thanks.”

  “Come on inside.” Grimes bounded up the front steps and held the door wide open.

  Luke followed, taking his hat off as he crossed the threshold.

  “Wilson told me he’d written Captain Hanger for assistance,” Grimes said as he closed the door and led Luke through the parlor to a small study at the back, “but I knew the Horsemen were retired. Didn’t really expect anythin’ to come of it. Yet here you are.”

  Here he was. So eager to take a job, any job, that he hadn’t even wired ahead to notify the client of his plans. Just showed up on his doorstep like a stray dog in search of a bone.

  Grimes grinned as he stepped aside and let Luke enter the office ahead of him. As soon as he crossed the threshold, the rancher’s demeanor sobered. It was as if the office served as the storage area for all his worry and stress. The heavy atmosphere pressed down on him, and Luke circled his shoulders in an effort to keep it from settling. Grimes waved him into a chair, then took a seat behind the large oak desk that dominated the room.

  Grimes propped his forearms on the desktop and blew out a heavy breath. “By yesterday’s count, I’ve lost ten head so far, but this ain’t the usual grab-and-run operation. They’re bleeding me dry little by little. It’s like the rustlers are toying with me.”

  Luke planted his boots solidly on the floor and pressed a palm against his knee as he leaned forward. “How so?”

  “They’re taking my beeves one or two at a time. No evidence of horses churning up the soil. No disturbin’ the herd. They sneak in at night, find the outliers, and walk one of the beeves away. I’ve posted a night guard, but I run a small operation. I ain’t one of them big outfits with a thousand head of cattle and dozens of men on the payroll. I run about two hundred head and employ three hands, not including old Quincy. Ten missing longhorns means I’ve lost five percent of my stock. If I can’t find a way to stop the rustling, in a month I could be down by twenty-five percent. In three months, I could be out of business.”

  It seemed risky for the rustlers to return to the scene of their crime over and over. Though maybe it wasn’t rustlers—plural—but a single thief.

  “Have you found any cut wire?”

  Grimes tapped the desktop with the side of his thumb, his mounting frustration adding force and volume to the percussion. “Nope. Been checkin’ the fence line every time a steer goes missin’. Ain’t found any cut wire or downed sections.” He snatched his hand away from the desk and balled his fingers into a fist. “I got no idea how they’re getting ’em out.”

  “Sounds like they might be local if they keep returning. Maybe a poor family lookin’ to feed their young’uns?”

  Grimes scowled. “I might think so if just one cow was taken. But ten? This ain’t about food. It’s personal.”

  Luke straightened. “Someone got an ax to grind with you?” It made more sense that this was an act of spite or revenge. Rustlers were in it for the money, and the only way to make enough money to justify the risk was to grab as much as they could and move on to greener pastures. They’d have to change the brands and find a buyer willing not to look too close. But if the motive wasn’t money, that opened up new avenues of possibilities.

  “That’s the problem.” Grimes jerked backward and slammed his palm against the chair arm. “I can’t think of anyone who’d want to ruin me. I had to let a hand go a couple of years back for havin’ a poor work ethic, but last I heard, he’d lit out for Colorado. And I ain’t got a beef with any of the folks in town.”

  “What about your men?” Luke tapped his hat brim against his thigh. “Maybe one of them got liquored up and said or did something to cause offense?”

  Grimes shook his head. “Buck and Randall are as steady as they come. They’re more into cards than liquor when seeking Saturday night entertainment. And before you ask, no, they don’t owe anyone money. Joe’s young, so he’s still got some stupid in him, but he can also charm the feathers off a goose, so no one stays mad at him longer’n a day.”

  Luke made a noncommittal sound. A good boss knew his men, but no man knew another completely. Everyone had secrets. It was possible one of the Triple G hands was in on it. Who else would know the land well enough to be able to sneak a longhorn off the property without cutting fence wire?

  “What about someone from your past? Any scorned business partners or women who might be seeking revenge?”

  “Nah. I bought this land free and clear a decade ago. Earned my starter herd after five years of cattle drives. Left on good terms with my previous outfit.” Grimes blew out a breath and ran a hand down his face. “As for women, I ain’t been on friendly terms with more than a handful over the years, and none long enough for expectations to develop on either side.” He gripped the edge of the desk and met Luke’s gaze straight on. “I’m a cow man, Mr. Davenport. My ranch is my life. I ain’t got time for politics or courtship or sticking my nose in business that ain’t my own. Only man I had a disagreement with lately was Doug Baxter, but he’s dead, so it can’t be him.”

  Luke’s instincts zinged. “What kind of disagreement did you and Baxter have?”

  Grimes shrugged. “The usual.” He poked a thumb over his shoulder. “He owned the land next door. A real pretty section with grass for grazin’ and a creek that’d be perfect for stock. I wanted to buy. Baxter wouldn’t sell. But like I said, the man’s dead. Goin’ nigh on two months now.”

  “He leave any family behind who might hold a grudge?” Grief often left folks looking for someone to blame, a place to direct their anger and hurt.

  “Just a kid. Nate. You don’t think . . .” A thoughtful look crossed the rancher’s face before he shook it off. “Nah. The boy’s only thirteen or fourteen. He can be a hothead at times, but he’s harmless. Although . . . now that ya got me ponderin’ on the boy, that might explain . . .” His mouth tightened.

  “What?”

  “Missin’ cattle ain’t the only thing I been plagued with lately.”

  Luke raised a brow, silently prodding Grimes to explain.

  “There’s been vandalism, too.”

  “Like what?”

  “Half my vegetable garden hacked to bits. Probably lost at least a month of winter’s stores. Horses turned out of the corral. One ended up lame. Prob’ly stepped in a prairie dog hole when the vandal spooked ’em. Little things too, like a skunk turned loose in the bunkhouse and manure bombs on the front porch. All takin’ place at night, just like the rustlin’. Both started around the same time. I assumed they were related. Some kind of personal attack. None of the other ranchers in the area have lost any beeves, so I’m likely bein’ targeted. I just don’t know why. But if this is somehow tied to Baxter . . .”

  “Let me dig around before you start jumpin’ to conclusions.” Luke stretched his legs out along the side of the desk. He’d pulled his share of pranks as a boy. Gotten in trouble more times than he could count. It could be the neighbor boy was responsible for those incidents. But rustling? That was a far cry from petty vandalism.

  Slapping his palms against his legs, Luke pushed up from his seat.

  Grimes rose with him. “That mean you’re takin’ the job?”

  Luke fit his hat to his head and nodded. “Yep.”