Prologue

Casper, Wyoming 1867

Near North Platte River

Sam Collins’ Ranch

Rory Snyder let his dark eyes wander across the brilliant red buttes shadowing the winding North Platte River. The tall man pushed back his cowboy hat and brushed sun-streaked brown hair out of his eyes, looking on the river again with a smile. He inhaled the morning’s fresh air from a cool breeze gusting off the Wyoming mountains above.

In the same moment, he enjoyed the fragrant smells of wild flowers drifting up from the swaying fields below. From atop his saddled buckskin, Bolt, he gazed down from the shimmering golden ripples of river on toward a beautiful piece of greenery owned by his neighbor Sam Collins. This was the land Sam promised him years ago.

He thought for the briefest of moments with a smile and single tear, My beloved Belle and Rachel, how I miss you! Maybe one day, when we meet again in Heaven, we’ll all walk together in a place just as beautiful.

Singing his girls’ favorite church hymn under his breath, Rory smiled again and wiped another tear.

Rory and Bolt trotted down a winding, rocky trail through Ponderosa pine and twisted sagebrush on toward Sam’s ranch. He took care, watching for widowmakers from the towering pines on their descent. And he kept a sharper eye out for mountain lions and grizzlies. Just on the outskirts of the forest, they reached the forty sprawling acres that made up Sam Collins’ Ranch.

On his ride in, Rory saw Sam outside hammering and cursing away at his workers trying to mend a ragged fence. Sudden motion caught his eye, and he saw the two haggard freedmen—Micah and Moses Jordan—that Sam had tending to his place. The cattleman had thrown a hammer at Moses and slung a board at Micah. Micah flinched and Moses drew away, their faces twisted in disgust.

“You useless sons of a mule! I ought to b—” Sam stopped the rest of his threat as Rory rode up. He’d surprised his neighbor.

Rory studied Sam as he squinted and smiled up to him like a serpent. “Rory Snyder, as I live and breathe!”

Scurrying over to Rory’s horse, Sam excitedly brushed dust out of his wiry blonde hair. Then the cattleman grabbed his scruff of beard as a towel, and wiped his grimy hand across his face. Hurriedly, Collins stuck out his hand to shake Rory’s hand.

The former sheriff extended his and shook in return. “Sam Collins, you old mongrel. You plan on getting that fence up before winter?”

“If I can ever find good help, Rory, I will. But what can you do?” Sam answered back, rubbing sticky pine tar from the fence off his hands.

“Maybe not yell at Micah and Moses so much.” Rory was trying to stay cool. He didn’t like the way Sam treated these men. Rory was pretty sure Sam didn’t even know their names other than ‘mule’. It was hard being neighborly with Sam. “Men get ornery when they are treated like mules.”

“But Red River Rory…then what would I do?” Sam smiled wickedly and questioned right back.

Rory’s eyes narrowed,

I hate the nickname and Sam knows it. This one is a sly weasel. How did I never arrest him?

Years ago, before the Civil War, the shimmering North Platte River had made Rory a legend. Back then in ‘The Battle of Red River’ he’d become Red River Rory, the most feared lawman across the Wyoming Territories. According to myth, Rory ran the North Platte River red with outlaw blood. He singlehandedly wrangled in the dangerous Scarred-Eye Joe and his gang in an epic fight.

Rory recalled that fateful day, when the outlaw Toad Rollins found him out on a stagecoach and all Hell broke loose. As the men fought, the stagecoach broke from the horse team, plunging into the river. Tumbling, blinded by bubbles, and dizzy, Rory had pulled himself out of the wreck. It was pure chance he was tossed near the island with Scarred-Eye Joe and his gang.

Rory unknowingly swam out to those hundred feet of river sand and destiny to fight Scarred-Eye Joe’s men. Finding the gang, he heaved rocks, and swung logs, dropping a surprised Lestor Snivels, and Polecat Pickard. An uppercut with his bare fists knocked out Raccoon Rabun, and with a haymaker he stumbled Richard Lamothe.

The powerful arm of justice, literally, had been served that day by Red River Rory. It was no more than any good lawman would’ve done, but Rory had the bad fortune to see it spread and take on a life of its own.

Rory grimaced as Sam went on about his heroics. Why can’t Sam leave it all in the past?

“A big hero like you deserves a large head of cattle.” Sam continued, smiling. Sam had been asking and enticing him while Rory had been thinking. “Rory, what do you think?”

“I’m sorry, Sam. Ask me again?” Rory replied, trying to focus back on the present.

Shaking his head and holding his arms wide in disbelief, Sam replied, “Anders McGriff got a hundred head heifers at pennies to the hoof. Can you believe it?”

“That is unbelievable. What are we talking, ten dollars per cow?” Rory smiled and wiped sweat from his brow as the men stood looking at the scrawny cows that Sam now had.

Sam continued, “Even less. That’s why I said pennies to the hoof, Rory.” Then he yelled to his wife, “Peggy, where’s my lunch? I swear that woman is useless, Rory.”

“Peggy is a busy woman with the baby.” Rory and Sam had moved their conversation near the house. Through the kitchen window, he watched a short, pale, and curvy woman tending to her baby, Linda. Sam shouted at her for lunch. Rory grinned as she huffed, pushing back a curl of her black hair. He turned back to answer about the cattle, “It’s almost too good to be true, Sam.”

“It certainly is, Rory. Would you be interested in a few?”

Rory looked out in the distance toward Casper Mountain and replied, “Yes, I think so. But I’d like to know who’s the cattleman selling so cheap?”

“I don’t know, Rory. I can ask when he brings out my new herd.” Then Sam joked, “But why should I look into it, Red River Rory? Isn’t that the sheriff’s job?”

“You slick, old dog! My sheriff days are long over.” Rory replied with a sly grin. “But on another note, how about the land you promised?”

“A Collins keeps his promise, Rory. The land’s yours.” Sam nodded. “Come by next week to sign for sure.”

***

A week later, in his weekly visit to his wife and daughter’s graves, Rory bit his lip, trying to stifle tears. He placed yellow roses on two graves. The headstones said Snyder with the names Belle and Rachel–Rory’s wife and daughter.

Choking back a sob, Rory whispered to them, “How I miss your hugs and laughs, my favorite gals. One day we’ll see each other again.”

Chapter One

Drying his watered eyes with a red dust bandana, Rory saddled up. Spurring Bolt, he headed to Sam’s ranch. By the time they were in mid-stride, Rory’s eyes had completely dried.

Taking the same trail as before to Collins Ranch, he saw and smelled billowing clouds of smoke ahead. Rory felt a chill of fear up his spine. He kicked Bo up, and the gelding roared faster as a Wyoming windstorm to Sam’s ranch. The ranch was ablaze!

Dismounting Bolt in front of the house, Rory heard a screaming child. Panicked, he busted through the front door as flames leapt out at him. Stumbling into the inferno, he desperately searched for the baby. Rory crouched below the smoke to see. He followed the cries to a backroom, finding Peggy disoriented, and Linda screeching in terror. Peggy, dazed and sobbing, tried desperately to crawl toward her baby screaming in the crib.

The scene Rory saw made him shudder. Poor Peggy was a tattered wreck. Her raven hair was a twisted, knotted nest of dirt and blood. Her right eye was swollen shut, with a purplish bruise rising. And worst of all, there was a red handprint imprinted across her face that had split her upper lip. Added to her torn clothes, all of it told a gruesome tale—rape.

Turning to the opposite corner, Rory saw a body lying face down, in a pool of blood. Examining further, as best he could in the billowing smoke, he saw the victim had been shot in the back. Turning the blood covered, waxen body over, Rory noted the man had gray and fixed eyes—lifeless eyes. It was the poor cattleman, Sam Collins. He was dead.

Rory carried both Peggy and Linda, stumbling out of the smoke-filled inferno. Placing the girl and baby safely in a field, Rory ran back to stop the fire. With the help of Moses, Micah, and neighbors, they hauled buckets of water trying to extinguish the inferno.

Rory, Micah, Moses, and the neighbors fought the red flames of the ranch fire deep into the darkness of night. By the early hours of the next morning, they had reduced the blaze to an extinguished, smoldering ruin. Tendrils of steam and puffs of smoke were all that remained to fight. Rory poured the last buckets of river water onto the charred remnants, watching them steam away.

Rory, between fighting the fire, made sure to check in on a sleeping Peggy and her baby. Neighbor’s wives kept vigil over the two, while Rory continued extinguishing the blaze through the night. Each time he checked, Peggy and Linda remained in the same spot he’d placed them earlier. Throughout the fire-fighting ordeal, the only change was that they now rested on blankets provided by the wives of neighbors.

Everyone re-checked each smoldering section, splashing more buckets until all was out. And everyone checked up on the animals. Four Plymouth Barred Rock chickens had gotten trampled when the cattle broke from the corrals—ten panicked, scrawny Angus that now looked blankly at Rory from a nearby pasture.

When the smoke cleared, it was evident that the house had lost the front and side dining room. The barn had a rear stable to be mended. But thankfully, both had been saved. Repairs would be needed but Collins Ranch endured.

Rory rested, totally exhausted and smelling of smoke. He nodded and thanked everyone who’d valiantly fought the fire together. Many had come to help Sam Collins’ family despite not liking the man himself. It filled the former lawman, now again rancher, with a sense of hope for people.

To see these kind souls sitting in dew-filled splendor attending to poor Peggy and her innocent Linda warmed his heart. A few of the wives of the men had helped clean her up and given her replacements for her tatters. For sure, Rory would have to get the doctor out here to check on her if no one had already.

Rory met the wary eagle eyes of Kai Barnham as he walked up. The man moved toward Rory with the agility of a mountain lion. Rory’s best friend carried a stern brow, hidden slightly by his long raven-black hair. Knocking soot off his tanned skin, he looked on the charred remnants. Kai’s intense, black eyes rigorously studied the whole scene of carnage.

Rory looked on and shook his head. “Well, Kai, what do you think?”

The half Comanche man sighed deeply. Rory knew his friend would have the usual answer. There was a reason the rival Navajo tribes had given Kai the nickname of Ahiga—’He Fights’. Kai grimaced, nodding to Rory. “I think you had better get ready for trouble.”

Rory’s brown eyes peered across the landscape of burned house and barn surveying everything. Who could possibly want to burn out a small-time farmer like Sam? His scrawny cows were worthless.

The question nagged at him. “Kai, why kill an old weasel like Sam Collins?”

“Get in line, Rory. He’s pretty much insulted and threatened everyone but you in the territory.” Kai raised a brow when he said the latter “And I was at the top of that list of wanting to put him down. He won’t be missed.”

Rory directed them to the edge of the forest to speak in confidence. Rory wanted to be clear on his views of Sam with Kai and well away from the dwindling crowd of neighbors. Now, with the fire out, everyone was headed back to their own homesteads.

“I know he was an ornery old mule. Lord, I know he was set in his charming ways. But they shot him in the back and raped his wife. That’s pretty cruel, even for Sam, don’t you think?” Rory rubbed his temples, trying to figure out who was capable of such a heinous crime.

“I know you are looking for the who, my friend. But Sam Collins whipped on the Jordan brothers regularly. He slapped that poor girl around constantly and insulted her. And in town, they whisper of bad deals he made with some stranger. ” Kai coughed up some ash-colored phlegm and spit on the ground. “No one will miss this one.”

“I guess we better get Clark Young to fetch the preacher over here for the funeral.” Rory sighed as he retrieved a shovel the neighbors had left. “I’m pretty sure, Kai, you and I will be the only ones attending.”

Kai looked over at Rory in disbelief. “Oh, you hadn’t heard of Sam’s run-in with Pastor Redmond? I see that story didn’t reach you either, my friend. Rory, you really need to get out more.”

The men determined that a bluff to the east of the forest was the best place to inter Sam. After placing Sam’s body in the ground, and saying a few prayers, the two men took another well needed break. Rory and Kai grabbed a few sips of water from an old watering trough near the barn. Rory spoke almost in a whisper, “Sam’s widow has a burnt ranch and barn. The cattle and livestock spread across two counties have to be rounded up at some point. She’s really in a bad way, Kai. Her ranch is burnt out. Her husband, the man charged to protect her out here in this vast wilderness, is dead.”

The two men both had seen this situation before through the years, “A single woman and a baby out here won’t last. You and I have seen what happens when they refuse help. Between the tribes, the bears, and outlaws, I give them a week alone. You can’t let her stay out here.”

“It’s a curious thing I am seeing right now. Look, how she has all her focus on her daughter, Linda. Peggy’s been assaulted and raped. Yet still, there she is feeding her baby mashed peas.” Peggy had moved her baby out of the sun toward the shade of an apple tree. Astonished by Peggy’s ability to cope and care for Linda, Rory kept watching. “Now, she’s already getting the bath and new diaper ready. All she cares about is keeping Linda safe.”

“Yes, the will to live or to sacrifice for others is a rare gift, Rory.” Kai added, looking at a burn hole in his shirt and shaking his head. “My wife will fuss for this.”

“I have no doubt, Ahiga. You better prepare to lose that fight.” Both men chuckled.

“For a brief moment, just a shadowed instant, I thought it was Belle and Rachel.” Rory’s eyes welled a minute thinking of his wife and child who died just after the war. Rachel had been fevered, pale and with the chills days after his return from the war. Unexpectedly, in a fit of coughing, Rachel had passed away in his arms. Belle, still grieving the loss of their beloved daughter, began having the sweats and chills, too. Two weeks from the day they buried Rachel, Belle succumbed, leaving Rory alone and broken-hearted. It had been a few years now, but still the ache of their loss bit in sometimes.

“I know you miss Belle and Rachel, my friend. No words that I can say will ever make their loss any less painful.” Kai gestured his friend to his horse. Rory could tell the situation was a little disconcerting for Kai. “I think it’s time we leave, my friend. One of the neighbors will take them on. Well, at least until Mrs. Collins finds a suitor and they can get back on their feet.”

“Probably so, my brother.” Rory replied as the two men headed to their horses tied by a nearby set of pines.

Kai was eyeing him with a smirk. Rory stopped ten feet from Bolt and looked right back at him. He knew his best friend had recognized something in his face. “What is it?”

“Rory Snyder, I’m seeing a look.” Kai teased.

“And, what kind of look might that be, sir?” Rory smirked right back.

Kai teasingly replied, “Oh, it’s something in your face I have not seen in years.”

“Please, do tell, Kai. What might that be?”

He said a single word with a profound implication. “Compassion.”

“Compassion?” Rory knew that Kai had hit the conflicted feeling that had his brain all twisted up right now. Compassion—heartfelt, genuine compassion—had sunk its teeth in like a rabid bear, giving the former lawman’s mind a quandary of sorts. The widow and her baby were tugging at Rory’s heartstrings. It started with the growing uncertainty for Peggy and her baby’s future. It grew as he watched Peggy spoon feed her precious Linda alone. They were now alone in this hostile land. Alone, just as he had been alone so long ago, when he buried Belle and Rachel.

“Mrs. Collins, I need to have a word with you.” Rory stepped toward Peggy and Linda.

“A word with me, Red River Rory?” Rory could see the woman was puzzled.

The ex-lawman’s heart and mind raced, worrying that Peggy and her child were so alone. Wyoming is still a wild and dangerous place, especially alone. Even staying with the few neighbors scattered about, won’t guarantee their safety. They won’t have the kind of protection I can provide.

Rory spoke solemnly in a whisper to Kai, “But, no one will look after them like I can, Kai.”

“How did I know, Red River Rory? Does this mean are you going to swoop in and save the day?” Kai smiled at his best friend and laughed.

“You know me too well, Ahiga.” Rory smiled slyly.