Now she was sure.
Someone was out there.
Someone who shouldn't have been out there.
Someone furtive, stealthy, sneaking around the stables.
"Cole? Kristin?" she whispered. She cleared her throat and called their names again a little louder.
Where were her brother-in-law and sister? They should have been in the house, but no one was answering her. She bit into her lower lip, wondering what she should do. There was a pair of Colt six-shooters over the cabinet just inside the hallway; Cole had set them up the very night they heard the war was over.
After that last fight, Malachi and Jamie Slater had ridden back to the war, not knowing that it was already over. Matthew McCahy had known it was over before he left, for he had stayed until his injury had healed, but then he had left also, to return to his Union Army unit. The war might be over, but he knew that peace was yet to be assured. The aftermath of the war would follow them.
And Cole Slater knew that he would eventually have to flee Missouri. He had ridden with Quantrill, although only briefly, and certain Yanks with power might consider him ripe for hanging. But Cole intended to wait for Matthew to return home before leaving the ranch. It wouldn't be safe to leave Kristin and Shannon alone. He had friends who would warn him if danger threatened.
Meanwhile, Cole had hung the Colts and had given Shannon some stern advice. "Most of the men coming home will be good ones," he had told her, hammering nails into the wall. "Yep, lots of good men, both blue and gray. Those who have fought with heart and soul for their ideals. And all that those men want to do now is come home. They want to pick up their plows again, open their shops again, start up their businesses once more. They want to hold their wives, and kiss their children, and lick their wounds and try to find a future. They'll come through here. They'll want water, and they'll want meals. And we'll help them when we can, both Union and Confederate."
"So what are the guns for?" Shannon asked, not even wanting to think of helping Confederates, men like the bushwhackers who had killed Robert.
"Because there are men whom the war has maimed, Shannon. Not in body but in mind. Dangerous men. Deserters and vultures. And I can assure you that as many of that type fought for the Union as for the Confederacy. Mind your step, Shannon. You know how to use these guns. Use them well. If anyone threatens you at all, be ready to defend yourself."
"Yes. I will. I can shoot."
"The bad guys, Shannon. Not just some poor farmer in a gray uniform."
"Cole, I have fed and cared for the Rebels passing this way."
"Yes, you have. But not with a great deal of pleasure."
"You make me sound cruel and unreasonable—"
She saw a strange light of pity in his eyes as he answered. "I don't think that, Shannon. The war has done things to all of us."
But he shook his head as he walked away, and she could tell that he really did think she was heartless. He knew that she could never forgive what had happened, even now that the South had been broken. She would never, never forget Robert Ellsworth, his gentle love, his simple honor. Nor could she ever forget his death. She had seen him buried. He had never been laid out in a proper wake, for there had not been enough of him left for the undertaker to prepare. The brutality had made her hard, and very cold.
Cole was wrong, though, if he thought she could no longer feel. She could still feel way too much, it seemed at times. But it was so much easier to be cold, and it was easier to hate. Cole was wrong if he thought she would kill just any Rebel soldier, but she could very easily gun down the men who had so callously gone out and brutally slaughtered Robert and his men. She thought she could have faced it if Robert had died in battle, but what the bushwhackers had done to him had been worse than murder.
Cole was disappearing around the corner, and she longed to call out to him. She did love him, even if he was a Rebel. He had saved Kristin and Shannon from certain rape and probable death, and he was as dear to her as her blood brother, Matthew. But she didn't call out. It wasn't something she could explain.
Cole's first wife had been killed by Kansas jayhawkers, yet now he seemed to have come to terms with life. Maybe Kristin had taught him forgiveness. But Shannon didn't know how to forgive, and it wasn't something she thought she could learn. She just knew that she still lived with the anguish of the past, and she could not put it behind her.
For Cole's sake, though, she would bite her lip and hand out water to the Rebs heading home. This was Missouri; most of the state was Confederate. She might have been a Rebel herself, since the ranch stood on the border between Kansas and Missouri, and the McCahys actually had leaned toward the South at first. But then Pa had been murdered. Matthew had joined up with the Union Army, and everything that followed after that had conspired to make Shannon an avowed Yankee, through and through.
But that didn't matter now.
Over the past days they had been handing out water and meals to boys in blue and to boys in gray. She reminded herself that Matthew was still out there somewhere. Maybe some Reb girl was giving him a cup of water or a piece of bread.
Shannon had handed out water and hot soup without a word. She had bandaged up Rebs, just as she had done on the day when the two cavalry units—Matthew's Federals and the Slaters' Confederates—had joined forces and beaten Zeke Moreau's marauders. For Matthew's sake, she cared for the weary soldiers who passed the house. Somewhere out there, he would be wandering the countryside. And Cole's brothers, too. Perhaps some young woman was being kind to them.
Shannon hoped that someone would deal gently with Jamie.
But if Malachi passed by some strange farmhouse, well, then, she hoped they gave him salt water!
Both Cole's brothers were Rebels. Jamie she could tolerate.
Malachi, she could not.
From the time they had first met, he had treated her like a bothersome child. She didn't know quite what it was that lurked between them, she only knew that it was heated and total and combustible. Every time they met, sparks flew and fury exploded.
She tried. She tried very hard not to let him creep beneath her skin. She was a lady. She had great pride, and tremendous dignity. But Malachi had the ability to strip her quickly of both. She would be pleased with her composure and the calmness of her temper, but then he would say just one word and she would lose all poise and restraint and long to douse him with a pail of water. And when she lost her temper at his needling, he would taunt her all over again, pleased that he had proven her to be a child, and a brat at that
Not so much now, she assured herself. And it was true. She had grown colder since Robert Ellsworth had died. No one could draw much of a reaction from her anymore.
She thought Jamie might return soon. But Malachi wouldn't.
Malachi had probably thought to join up with General Edmund Kirby-Smith and fight to the bitter finish. But even Kirby-Smith had surrendered now. Maybe Malachi would head for Mexico, or for Central or South America. Good riddance to him. It was difficult to forget the last time they had met. It had been on the day when all hell had broken loose, when Moreau's band had been broken. Even then, in the midst of chaos, Malachi had managed to annoy her. In the thick of it all, he had ordered her around and they had very nearly come to blows. Well, she had slapped him, but Kristin and Cole had been there, and Malachi had been forced to calm his temper. Shannon hoped the Federals had picked him up and placed him in a prison camp. It would be good for him to-cool his heels for a while. He was going to have to accept the truth.
The Confederacy was bested and broken, and the Glorious Cause was lost.
It was over.
But not yet ended. Some drifter was crawling around in the stables.