Excerpt: Texas historical

Chapter One
The Texas Frontier, 1825

“Kit!”
Katherine Barclay stopped stirring the laundry in the iron pot, swept her hair back from her face and schooled her features into patience before she turned to her young sister-in-law, Mary, who’d just run into the yard, not even wearing a wrap. The child-well, no child, Kit had been just two years older than Mary when she married John-was recovering from a fever and didn’t have the sense to walk out into the frosty day without even something covering her head? But the girl looked up to Kit, and while that admiration frequently tried Kit’s patience, she had to remain conscious of it. There was no living with the girl if Kit hurt her feelings.
“What is it?” she asked, just as Mary blurted, “A man is riding this way!”
Kit’s heart thumped, her first thought was that John approached, that the word they’d received of his death on the Texas border had been a mistake. But she tamped down the hope as she’d trained herself, and fear rose in its place. Only she, Mary and her mother-in-law Agnes remained at the fort standing guard between the Karankawa tribe and the Austin Colony. The other inhabitants had fled or died. John had urged Kit to come with him on his mission back to the United States, but their baby Daniel had been sick and she hadn’t wanted to travel with him. Agnes and Mary had agreed to stay with her, and she’d been grateful for that when she received first word that her husband had been killed in a skirmish with outlaws, and when she’d buried her son a week later.
She couldn’t dwell on that now, however. She didn’t allow herself. Once the other families had left, and the two remaining soldiers had died from the fever that killed Daniel and so sickened Mary, she was in charge. As much as she loved Agnes and Mary, they were too frail for this frontier life, leaving Kit in charge.
And now their safety was threatened.
She released the stirring stick she’d been gripping so hard. “Where is this man?”
“He’s coming from the northeast. We saw him through the window.”
Another transgression. They shouldn’t have had the window open. The last thing Kit needed was to bury her sister-in-law if she caught the fever again. Kit stepped away from the laundry fire and snatched her own wrap from the chair nearby. She folded the woolen fabric around herself as she headed for the steps leading to the top of the fort wall.
“Stay here,” she ordered over her shoulder as Mary started after her.
The command did no good, and the young woman trotted behind her up the steps.
Wind whipped at Kit’s already wild hair, bit through her thin cloak, her damp dress. The low gray clouds didn’t even offer the hope of the sun. She buried her hands in the fabric and scanned the low hills of the horizon.
And there, astride a beautiful roan, slumped a man in a saddle, heading straight toward them.
Kit cursed her lack of foresight. She’d left her rifle sitting loaded beside the chair where her cloak had been. She hadn’t expected him to be so close, though really, if Mary and Agnes had seen him through the window, well, what had she expected?
She whirled to remedy the situation when a movement from the man caught her eye, and she turned back just in time to see him drop out of the saddle and remain motionless there on the road.
Drunk, was her first thought. Or hurt. Or sick.
No more sickness. She couldn’t bear expending her energy on someone she couldn’t help.
She stared out at the man, so still in the dry golden grass, his horse standing patiently beside him, and gnawed her lip in indecision. Mary gripped her arm, huddled against Kit for warmth.
“What are we going to do? Just leave him out there?”
What could she do? Bring him into the fort, not knowing who he was, what his purpose was? They were three women with little means of protecting themselves against someone who meant them harm. And if he was indeed sick, could she risk the three of them contracting his illness?
But could she just leave him out there to die? And then what? Watch carrion destroy his body? Hardly a Christian thing to do.
Confused and tired, tired of making all these decisions, she tucked an arm around Mary’s shoulders. The girl was shivering uncontrollably, her teeth chattering. Kit removed her own wrap and folded it about the girl. “The first thing we’re going to do is get you warm before you sicken again.” And buy herself time to think.
Agnes waited for them in the doorway of the rooms they had claimed for themselves when they realized no one was coming back to the fort this winter. She hurried forward to gather her daughter, but her worried eyes sought Kit.
“Did you see him? He’s fallen.”
“I saw.” Kit ushered the women into the room and closed the door. Immediately, she warmed, but she moved to stand by the hearth anyway, arms wrapped around herself.
Agnes peered out the window, past the parchment paper covering it. “What are we going to do?”
“Has he moved?”
Agnes shook her head. “He could be dead.”
He could be. And that left that beautiful horse, a horse they could use. And if he was sick or drunk, he was hardly a threat. They could tie him up until they learned his motives.
Decision made, Kit reached into the box over the fireplace and drew out the pistol John had left her. Her fingers flexed when she opened the box, as the memory of how he’d taught her to shoot it stabbed through her. Before he’d brought her to this place from her home near New Orleans,, he wanted her to be able to defend herself, so he took her to an open field with this pistol and the rifle still in the yard, leaning against the chair. He’d taught her how to load each, his big, sure hands guiding hers through the motions. He’d shown her how to sight down the barrel, his arms around her, his strong chest at her back, his arms along hers. She could still feel the heat of his breath against the back of her neck, the way his fingers curved around hers, his soft chuckle as she flinched at the sound. He hadn’t allowed her to back down, hadn’t allowed her to quit until she could load each gun in under two minutes. Her marksmanship, he said, needed work, so reloading quickly was key.
Then, when her arms had trembled from lifting the heavy rifle, he’d taken her home and made love to her.
Tears swam in her eyes. She missed him so much. It wasn’t right she should lose them both, her husband and her son.
“Kit?” Mary rested a hesitant hand on Kit’s arm.
Kit drew in a deep breath, straightening her shoulders and blinking back the tears that she didn’t have time to shed. She set the box on the table and tucked the heavy pistol into the pocket of her dress.
“You’re going out there?” Agnes’s voice rang in the small room, strident. “What if it’s a trap? If he is just using a ruse to get in here?”
“He has no way of knowing it’s just the three of us. That’s why I fire the cannon, so anyone around will think the soldiers are still here.”
“We barely have enough food for ourselves,” Agnes pointed out.
That was true, and their supply was dwindling. Kit herself had only taken a small amount of porridge this morning in an attempt to make their supplies stretch. What they would do when they ran out of the root vegetables, dried beef and wheat flour they had, she had no idea. Her skills with the rifle weren’t nearly good enough to hunt, even if she was brave enough to leave the fort.
“His horse looks healthy enough.” She met Agnes’s gaze.
“Riding him would be dangerous,” Mary asserted.
“We can butcher him,” Kit said softly, though the words pained her to say.
Mary gasped, her brown eyes going wide. Kit ignored the outrage. She had to. She strode through the door and tried to shut it behind her, but as usual, Mary was behind her, still in Kit’s wrap. Kit would need that to venture out of the fort, though it would limit her mobility. She picked up her loaded rifle by the barrel, pivoted and returned to the window, where Agnes watched the stranger, her body vibrating with anxiety.
Kit raised that anxiety by thrusting the rifle at her. “If he makes any sudden movements when I’m out there, shoot this.”
Agnes raised her hands and stared at the gun in horror. “I can’t shoot a man.”
Kit bit back a sigh of frustration. “You don’t have to shoot him. Just make him think you are. He doesn’t know who is in here, remember? Please, Agnes. I need your help.” The last words dragged out of her, words she rarely spoke.
Agnes must have realized it, too, because she pursed her lips, lowered her hands and reached for the rifle.
After a quick review, Kit retrieved her wrap from her terrified sister-in-law and marched out of the room, hesitating only a moment at the giant wooden doors of the fort, the doors she hadn’t opened since word came about John. She didn’t allow herself to think of what would happen to her family if she died out there, and she tugged the door open wide enough to slip out.
The stranger was farther away than she realized, and every step away from the fort made her feel more vulnerable. She reassured herself by thinking they hadn’t seen any Karankawa in a week or more-the days blended together-and by pressing her hand to the gun resting heavily against her thigh in her skirt pocket.
She expected the horse to react to her approach, but he merely lifted his head and widened his nostrils. Her gaze returned to the man sprawled face down in the dirt, one arm pinned beneath his big body, one long leg curled out, the other straight behind him. His hat had tumbled off into the grass, revealing dark hair with a touch of red.
He was breathing. She could see the rise and fall of his back beneath the wool coat, could see the dance of dust in front of his mouth with every exhalation.
He was young, younger than John had been, his face long and lean and bristled with reddish stubble, flushed beneath. His full lips were chapped. She knew before she reached him that he was feverish.
He was alive. What was she going to do now?