Chapter One
Arkansas Ozarks, 1860
“Is that smoke I smell?”
Iain MacEnroy glanced at his youngest brother, Robbie, who was sniffing the air like a hound tracking a wounded fox. As he opened his mouth to say just that the smell hit him. The breeze did carry the strong, acrid smell of smoke, wood smoke. Since he saw no sign that the trees they rode through were on fire he suspected someone’s cabin was burning. It was not an unusual problem but it could mean trouble for them. He halted his mount and struggled to determine where the smoke was coming from.
“We are riding right toward it,” he said. “Do we go on?”
“Aye,” said Matthew, the brother closest in age to him. “I suspicion it would be wise to ride in as if we approached an enemy.”
“Good thinking.” Iain shifted his rifle so that it was easier for him to use it if needed and nudged his horse forward in a slow cautious pace. “Stay with the wagon, Duncan. And keep a close watch out, rifle at the ready,” he ordered the brother who was barely a year older than Robbie before fixing his full attention on their approach.
The trees began to thin out but Iain and his brothers were careful to stay within the shadows. When the clearing appeared, Iain signaled a halt. He sighed when the source of the smoke proved to be a smoldering cabin just as he had suspected. He could see no bodies but they could easily be inside. To his relief he could also see no sign of the ones who had caused such destruction but then realized they could also still be inside.
“I see no sign of Indians,” said Robbie.
Iain dismounted. “Wasnae Indians. Nay sure there are any left in these hills.” He glanced at the tracks in the dirt, clear to see in the area around the edge of the clearing but tried to keep an eye on the house for any sign of movement. “Horses were shod. No arrows I can see. Wager we will find boot prints near to the cabin. I keep telling ye that the natives were driven out and we havenae heard or seen them slipping back. This was done by the vermin who slip about these hills doing what they please and none of it nice.”
“Should we have a wee look inside?”
“We will walk round the outside first and see what we can see before we step inside.” Iain stood and looked at the smoking cabin. “Robbie, ye could try throwing some water on any flames ye see. Just make sure there is no one who is a threat inside. We may need to step inside later and best if it isnae still burning.”
It was in the back of the cabin that they found the dead. Iain sighed. The woman’s body had been left obscenely sprawled, naked and bloody, at the edge of an expansive garden heavy with ripened fruit and vegetables. The man’s body had been pinned to the door and it was clear that he had been tortured. They were both rather young and Iain suspected they had once been a very handsome couple. He could see the remains of the beauty they had had before the ones who killed them had sliced up their faces. Iain had the chilling feeling that part of that torture had been forcing the man to watch as his woman or kinswoman was raped and butchered. Whoever had come here had been the worst of the worst that ran in these hills. They would definitely have to keep a watch out for them.
“Have to wonder what they kenned that the enemy so badly wanted to know,” said Matthew as he stepped up next to Iain.
“Aye, I thought the same. I also get the feeling they were nay just brutes who kill because they can. We certainly have enough of that sort in these hills. Nay, ye are right, they wanted something. Ye have to wonder what that something was that would make two people endure this. Sad as it is, it can only be good for us if this was some private fight, some very personal vendetta. Weel, best we get them buried.”
“Ye want us to bury them?”
“I will no leave them for the beasts to gnaw on. We have the time and we have the manpower to dig a grave. Get us some shovels.” He watched Matthew walk away and then moved to take the man’s body down.
As he set the man’s body next to the woman’s he frowned at the man’s hands, something catching his eye, but he was not sure what. Scowling, he used a piece of the man’s shirt to wipe the blood off the man’s left hand. The gleam of a wide gold ring sparkled in the light of the sun. That told him that the killers had not been driven by the dark need to steal. No thief worth a thought would leave behind such a ring. This was born of some private battle, he thought again. He moved to the woman, straightened her tattered clothing as much as he could and carefully wiped clean her left hand to reveal another gold wedding band. She also wore an ornate gold locket around her neck.
“Got the shovels.” Matthew cursed when he saw the locket. “So, it wasnae robbery.”
“Nay.” Iain stood up and brushed off his clothes.
“Then what reason did anyone have for killing them?”
“I think trying to find the answer to that will take us time we dinnae have.”
“But . . .” Matthew sputtered as Iain began to dig the needed grave, careful to toss the dirt away from the garden.
“There is naught we can do except do them the courtesy of burying them. It is not much but I think they have suffered more than enough already.” Iain kept digging and only glanced briefly toward his brother who began to dig as well. “Where is Robbie?”
“Getting what we have to collect up this harvest. I told him to. Sorry as we are for these folk, it makes no sense to leave good food to rot.”
Robbie arrived a few moments later. Iain could see the horror that filled the eyes of the man who was barely out of boyhood. For most of Robbie’s life there had been little bloodletting done around him, and what little he had seen still hit him hard.
“See if there are any blankets or the like in the barn, Rob,” he said. “We cannae take the time to build coffins but it would be nice if we could shroud the bodies.”
Robbie nodded, his auburn hair falling into his eyes. “Why did they not take anything?”
“They wanted these poor people to tell them something, I am thinking, and I also think they didnae get that information so they left. Go on, laddie. See if there is something we can use for a shroud.”
As soon as his young brother was gone, Iain returned to the work of digging a grave with Matthew’s help. He did not think these two people would object to sharing a grave. At least he prayed not, for he had more than enough ghosts haunting him already. By the time Robbie returned with two blankets, well-worn and smelling faintly of horses, they had dug the grave. Iain felt uneasy about just tossing the bodies in the hole so he jumped down into the grave. It just seemed so disrespectful to throw them in the hole. He had Matthew hand each one down to him. Matthew handed down the man first and then the woman, who Iain tucked up at the man’s side.
