chapter 3
DUNCAN MCMURRAY RODE THROUGH THE NIGHT surrounded by a dozen other Texas Rangers. He couldn’t help but feel like he was running away from his duty to the family, but this time, more then any other as a ranger, he was needed. Finding husbands for his three cousins would have to wait.
Every man traveling with Captain Leander McNelly knew they didn’t have the numbers to do what had to be done. They all knew they were riding into hell and might not be coming back. Duncan laughed to himself, thinking the rangers had always been long on courage and short on brains. When they died in the line of duty, few commented, but when they won, despite the odds, they became legends.
Since the War Between the States, bandits from across the border had been raiding cattle off ranches in Texas. At least a hundred fifty thousand head had vanished, not counting the hundreds stolen by small-time outlaws hiding out in canyons within the state. Someone had to stop them, and Captain McNelly seemed in a hurry to take on the job.
After the war, Texas fell into chaos on many fronts. Most men who came home were heartsick as well as broken in body. They’d fought for Texas thinking of it as sovereign and free to step away from the Union. The issue of slavery hadn’t made them raise their guns, but it had made them put them down. Most were lucky if they came home with a horse and a weapon.
Duncan had been a kid when the war ended. He and the girls had stayed at Whispering Mountain. Teagen, the oldest and the head of the McMurray clan, was too old to enlist. He ran the ranch and supplied as many horses as he could, while Travis, Duncan’s adopted father, stayed in Austin. His wounds as a ranger kept him from enlisting, and his battles were in the courts.
Tobin, the youngest of the three McMurray brothers, was torn. In the end, he couldn’t fight against his wife’s people. He served as sheriff in town until the war was over He tried to keep peace in their part of Texas. He also bought a piece of land near Anderson Glen and plowed it every spring, then planted enough vegetables to feed the town through winter. Duncan and every kid at the ranch big enough to ride spent every Saturday all summer delivering food to those who couldn’t come out and harvest their own.
Sage, the McMurray brothers’ baby sister, had married not long before the war. Her husband, Drummond Roak, joined Terry’s Rangers with his friends and fought. Few thought he’d make it home alive, but Sage never doubted. She just said that he’d promised he would. Three months after the war ended, he walked onto the ranch. He was so thin she didn’t recognize him at first, but once he was home they promised never to be more than yelling distance apart.
Duncan slowed his horse to a walk and smiled. Memories of the McMurrays, his family, kept him warm. He and Teagen’s girls were the oldest of the children, and it was probably time they all married and settled down. He only hoped at least one of the three men he sent north on the train would prove a match. They were all from good families, and none had a drinking or gambling problem. Boyd Sinclair already ran his family ranch, Davis Allender was well educated, and Walter Freeport the Fourth came highly recommended by a friend of his father.
Deep down Duncan knew none of them were good enough. No man ever would be. At different times in his childhood he’d hated all three girls and loved each one. Emily, just older than him, had been his best friend when they’d been about twelve. They’d ridden the ranch and built forts all one summer, but after she went away to finishing school she barely spoke to him. Rose always drove him crazy bossing him around, but he knew she’d be at his side if trouble came. And then there was Bethie. Who couldn’t love Beth? Sometimes he’d just stare at her, wondering how she could have been born so beautiful. He was in love with her until the fourth grade when she started calling him Duckie instead of Duck. A nickname of Duck was hard enough to live down. Calls of Duckie from the other guys got him into a dozen fights that year and cured him of loving Bethie.
“You’re getting behind, McMurray,” Wyatt Platt said as he passed like a shadow in the darkness.
“Just resting my horse, Wyatt. I’ll catch up,” Duncan answered. His body might be heading into a fight, but tonight his mind was only on thoughts of home.
“I almost rode right into you. With that black horse you’re darn near invisible.” Wyatt never learned to whisper. He talked as he lived, at full volume.
Duncan laughed. “I could say the same about you, but I’ve been smelling you for half a mile. Did you ever think about giving the folks around you a break and taking a bath?”
“Is it spring?” the shadow beside him asked. “My ma always sewed me into my long johns in late September and didn’t cut them off me until March. She swears that’s why she raised six of the healthiest kids in Tennessee.”
Duncan laughed. “More likely no one with a cold would get within ten feet of you. All those brothers and sisters still alive?”
“Yeah, all except me are married and raising families.”
“Did you have any trouble getting the girls married off? I got these three cousins who don’t seem to take to the idea much. They’re all in their twenties and some folks are commenting that they’re getting pretty ripe on the vine.”
“Nope,” Wyatt answered. “My oldest sister was married to three different men during the war. She figured whichever one came home first was the keeper. Course, she packed up and left for Texas the day after the first one arrived just in case the other two didn’t see it that way.”
“He didn’t mind that she’d been two-timing him with two other men?”
Wyatt laughed. “I never heard him say. He did tell me once that he was lucky he didn’t have to pay for the lessons her third husband taught her about how to act under the covers. They’re living down by Galveston and last I heard they had so many kids they stopped naming them and just started numbering. So, I’m guessing what she learned they’re still practicing.”
Duncan smiled with his friend. Wyatt was five years older and tough as thick jerky, but he never believed in giving up. He’d die fighting.
Wyatt’s shadow moved on, vanishing in the night. Duncan wouldn’t count him among his closest friends, but they’d cover each other in any fight. Because they both followed Captain McNelly, they were alike in the way they felt about protecting Texas.
When the rangers had been reorganized after the war, a second group called the Special Force was formed under a thirty-year-old captain named Leander McNelly. McNelly might be thin as a fence post and look half sick most of the time, but he had thirty rangers riding to his call tonight. The captain had learned by messenger that Juan Flores had stolen a herd of cattle and crossed the Rio Grande, thinking he wouldn’t be pursued. The captain was determined to capture Flores even if he had to cross the Rio to do it.
Duncan wanted to be there, to fight and to be part of history in the making. He’d help the girls get married off and add lots of kids to the family tree, but Duncan had a wild streak he knew would never allow him to settle down.
They rode until the sun was high, then turned their horses out to graze while they slept a few hours. By dusk they were near the border. Thirty rangers met three companies of U.S. Cavalry camped along the river’s edge.
Captain McNelly talked to the soldiers while Duncan and the others rested. They knew what was coming and they knew they needed to be ready. Duncan checked his weapons while Wyatt checked his saddle. None of the rangers talked. The time for talking was over; soon it would be time to fight.
A little after midnight McNelly gave the command. Thirty rangers swung onto their horses and stormed the Rio, heading straight across to Juan Flores’s ranch, called Las Cuevas (“The Caves”).
Duncan McMurray rode in the middle of the group. The river was tricky and the far side looked steep, but that didn’t bother him near as much as the fact that not one cavalryman followed.
His mare took the water well. McMurray horses were raised on a ranch surrounded on two sides by water. By the time he was twelve, his uncles had taught him how to handle a horse in currents.
Before dawn the rangers would be facing down two hundred raiders. The thought made him laugh suddenly. Every ranger he knew would say the odds were about even. The only thing that really bothered Duncan was the fact that they would be fighting on Mexican soil.
Duncan kicked his horse and moved past some of the others. If he was riding into hell, he might as well have a good view.
Texas Blue
Jodi Thomas's books
- Castillo's Fiery Texas Rose
- Hotter than Texas (Pecan Creek)
- One Texas Night
- Texas Rose
- Texas Tiger
- Undercover Texas
- The Texas Renegade Returns
- Collide
- Blue Dahlia
- A Man for Amanda
- All the Possibilities
- Bed of Roses
- Best Laid Plans
- Black Rose
- Blood Brothers
- Carnal Innocence
- Dance Upon the Air
- Face the Fire
- High Noon
- Holding the Dream
- Lawless
- Sacred Sins
- The Hollow
- The Pagan Stone
- Tribute
- Vampire Games(Vampire Destiny Book 6)
- Moon Island(Vampire Destiny Book 7)
- Illusion(The Vampire Destiny Book 2)
- Fated(The Vampire Destiny Book 1)
- Upon A Midnight Clear
- Burn
- The way Home
- Son Of The Morning
- Sarah's child(Spencer-Nyle Co. series #1)
- Overload
- White lies(Rescues (Kell Sabin) series #4)
- Heartbreaker(Rescues (Kell Sabin) series #3)
- Diamond Bay(Rescues (Kell Sabin) series #2)
- Midnight rainbow(Rescues (Kell Sabin) series #1)
- A game of chance(MacKenzie Family Saga series #5)
- MacKenzie's magic(MacKenzie Family Saga series #4)
- MacKenzie's mission(MacKenzie Family Saga #2)
- Cover Of Night
- Death Angel
- Loving Evangeline(Patterson-Cannon Family series #1)
- A Billionaire's Redemption
- A Beautiful Forever
- A Bad Boy is Good to Find
- A Calculated Seduction
- A Changing Land
- A Christmas Night to Remember
- A Clandestine Corporate Affair
- A Convenient Proposal
- A Cowboy in Manhattan
- A Cowgirl's Secret
- A Daddy for Jacoby
- A Daring Liaison
- A Dark Sicilian Secret
- A Dash of Scandal
- A Different Kind of Forever
- A Facade to Shatter
- A Family of Their Own
- A Father's Name
- A Forever Christmas
- A Dishonorable Knight
- A Gentleman Never Tells
- A Greek Escape
- A Headstrong Woman
- A Hunger for the Forbidden
- A Knight in Central Park
- A Knight of Passion
- A Lady Under Siege
- A Legacy of Secrets
- A Life More Complete
- A Lily Among Thorns
- A Masquerade in the Moonlight
- At Last (The Idle Point, Maine Stories)
- A Little Bit Sinful
- A Rich Man's Whim
- A Price Worth Paying
- An Inheritance of Shame
- A Shadow of Guilt
- After Hours (InterMix)
- A Whisper of Disgrace
- A Scandal in the Headlines
- All the Right Moves
- A Summer to Remember
- A Wedding In Springtime
- Affairs of State
- A Midsummer Night's Demon
- A Passion for Pleasure
- A Touch of Notoriety
- A Profiler's Case for Seduction
- A Very Exclusive Engagement
- After the Fall
- Along Came Trouble
- And the Miss Ran Away With the Rake
- And Then She Fell
- Anything but Vanilla
- Anything for Her