Chapter One

Wyoming

June 1875

"Cav, bring them cattle 'round this way." Cavanaugh McEllis responded to the order by quickly riding around the unruly herd and cracking his whip. He called out, getting the beasts' attention to start them moving in the right direction.

"Get around there now." he urged. As the cattle fell into step with the rest of the herd, Cav pulled up on the paint's reins and dug around in his pocket until he found the cigarette he knew he had stuffed in there this morning. Smoking was prohibited at the bunkhouse of the Biggley ranch and so he had to take the opportunity to light up out here while he could.

"You know if Lara Biggley caught you doin' that you'd be in a heap of trouble and get one hell of a lecture." LeRoy warned with a snicker as he rode up beside him. The group of five men were moving the cattle to the south pasture for grazing and the June sun was hot as it beat down on their sweaty backs.

Cav just shrugged and lit the rolled tobacco and paper anyway.

"Lara wouldn't lecture him." Hal countered as he rode past them to get around the other side of the meandering cattle. "She's in love with our boy Cav."

"I ain't interested in Lara." Cav grumbled, rubbing his hand over the leather chaps on his aching left thigh.

"Or any other woman for that matter." LeRoy countered with a laugh. Cav just shrugged and continued to smoke as he squinted into the sunlight. These men didn't know his past. They only knew that he had come to the Biggely ranch three years ago and was a hard worker with a limp who didn't talk about himself.

They didn't know about the three graves he had left behind him or the bullet that had caused the lameness in his left leg.

"Rider coming in fast." LeRoy stated, pointing over the plains. Cav's hand immediately went to the .45 Colt on his hip but he relaxed when he realized it was Ben Biggely. The bosses thirteen year old son.

"What are you doing all the way out here?" LeRoy asked with a grin as Ben pulled his horse to a stop, panting from the fast pace he must have maintained while riding out here.

"Got a letter for you, Cavanaugh. It just showed up and it says it's urgent. I knew you wouldn't be back to the bunkhouse til tomorrow and..."

"You read it?" Cav asked with a frown as he jerked the opened envelope from Ben's hand.

"No, Lara did." Ben replied. Cav cursed. Damn that seventeen year old girl and her foolish obsession with him. Cav pulled the letter from the envelope and scanned it quickly.

A lump lodged in his throat and his heart seemed to cease beating. He mumbled a quick, 'I gotta go' and thundered away from the shocked men as if the hounds of hell themselves were nipping at his heels.

***

Dodge City Kansas

June 1875

Jamison McEllis awoke to the feel of lips on his bare shoulder. He moaned as he looked over his shoulder and saw Hallie smiling coyly at him, her red hair falling across her pale, freckled shoulders.

"Good morning, Marshall." she purred. Jamison rolled quickly and pulled her into his arms. Hallie's green eyes slipped closed as he placed a soft kiss to her lips and then she groaned as he pulled away and rose from the bed.

Jamison could feel her eyes on him as he hunted for his clothes and slipped them on. He sat on the edge of the bed to pull on his boots and Hallie's arms slipped around his neck.

"You could stay around." she offered. "I wouldn't complain." Jamison shook his head, finished pulling on his boots and then took Hallie's hand in his and kissed it.

"I gotta get going." he replied. He stood up and walked over to the side table where he'd left the rest of his belongings. He sighed when he heard Hallie snort with irritation and rise from the bed, the sound of the sheet being wrapped angrily around her body filling the silence of her bedroom.

Jamison pinned his U.S. Marshal badge to his vest and then went about hooking his worn gun belt around his lean hips.

"I'm getting tired of this, Jamison McEllis." Hallie stated. Jamison glanced over his shoulder at her.

"Tired of what?" he asked as he finished fastening his gun belt and grabbed his worn gray hat.

"Bein' used by you, that's what. When are you gonna marry me? I'm not gonna wait around forever."

Jamison shook his head. He and Hallie had had this same conversation a hundred times and he figured they'd have it at least one hundred more. He wasn't getting married and she wasn't going anywhere. They both knew it.

"I'll be back around this way soon." he replied as he stepped toward the door.

"Another man might come around before then." Hallie warned with a dainty shrug. "He might just sweep me off my feet and want to marry me and take me away from all this."

Jamison took a deep breath through his nose and turned to look at her with his hand on the door leading out into the alley.

"And?" he asked. She squared her tiny shoulders and lifted her chin.

"And I just might let him." Jamison knew she wouldn't and so he simply plopped his hat on his head and opened the door.

"Do what you gotta do, ma'am." he replied and then he closed the door with a click behind him, ignoring the disappointed sob he heard come from Hallie as he made his way out.

Jamison squinted in the bright morning sunlight as he made his way out of the alley and onto main street. He was going to go get his horse from the livery and start on his patrols but was stopped when the clerk from the post office ran down the street toward him.

"Marshal McEllis!" he called.

"Call me Jamison, Ed." Jamison replied. "What's the problem?"

"No problem, sir." Ed replied as he held out an envelope. "This came for you this morning and it says urgent. I wanted you to get it before you left." Jamison nodded. He took the envelope thankful that the man had caught him since it would be at least a month before he made it back to Dodge.

He saw the return address from Kentucky and felt his heart catch. He waved goodbye to Ed and then quickly started toward the livery, opening the letter as he went.

"Damn it!" he exclaimed as he crumpled the letter and shoved it in his pocket. His fast walk turned into a run as he prayed he'd make it home in time.

Kentucky

August 1875

Cav rode up through the valley and saw the tiny log house he'd grown up in sitting at the head of the hollow. It had been ten years since he'd been back to Kentucky. He and Leah had moved away to settle in Virginia near her family and after the loss of his wife and children, Cavanaugh had run west, desperate to be away from any scenery, sight or smell that might remind him of those he had lost or the life he had lived with them.

Cav could hardly believe his eyes when he saw his older brother Jamison standing on the porch, smoking a cigar. Cav hitched his horse to the porch banister and walked up the steps.

"How is she?" he asked hesitantly. No greeting for his brother. Cav had nothing to say to the bastard who had refused to hunt down the murderer that had taken everything from him.

Jamison sighed and shoved his free hand in his pocket, his U.S. Marshal badge glinting in the afternoon sunlight.

"She's still lucid but she doesn't have long left." he replied sadly. Cav didn't spare another second on his brother and instead made his way into the tiny four room cabin he had grown up in with his mother, father and three brothers.

He paused outside his mother's closed door and pulled off his hat before running his hand through his thick blond hair that fell to the neckline of his stained, blue chambray shirt.

"Come on in, Cavanaugh." his mother's sweet voice called. Cavanaugh smiled, despite his sadness.

He opened the door and walked in the room, his eyes instantly falling on his mother's thin form lying in the bed. His heart broke and his throat clogged. It was one thing to hear your mother was dying and another to see it. Cav had seen too much death in his twenty-eight years of life. He didn't want to see anymore.

"Don't look so sad, dear. Come over here and give your mama a hug." Evelyn McEllis ordered and Cav's dirty boots led him across the room and he hugged his mama tight, hating the feel of her bones through her thin pink gown.

"Good to see you again, Mama." he said huskily as he stood straight and clutched his hat in his hands. "How did you know it was me out there and not Jamison?" Evelyn smiled, her wrinkled skin pulling across her gaunt bones and her blue eyes sparkling.

"My boys all walk a little different." she replied. Cav frowned and put his hat back on his head.

"Guess it's easy to hear the difference." he agreed as he rubbed at his left thigh. Evelyn rolled her eyes.

"Stop feeling sorry for yourself and help me sit up." she ordered. Cav nodded and quickly went about pulling his mother up. She put her back against the headboard and smiled at him.

"There that's better. It's easier to talk to somebody when you're not staring at them from the flat of your back."

"Yes'm." Cav replied, still unable to look her in the eyes because of the tears that kept trying to collect in his own.

"I know each of my boys by their walk." Evelyn continued. "Jamison's walk is heavy, strong and steady. Just as unyielding as he is. Your walk is slower paced. Confident yet calm and patient, just as you are. My Ian," Cav rolled his eyes at mention of the third brother in the bunch.

"Don't roll your eyes, Ian does the best he can." Evelyn scolded. Cav simply nodded. Telling her that her third son was a lawbreaking outlaw who took what he wanted and hadn't made an honest dollar in his life was a lot like pissing in the wind. It didn't accomplish much and you ended up being the one that smelled bad by the time you were done.

"Ian has a walk that is nearly silent. You don't hear him coming unless he wants you to." Cav could remind her that that was because he was used to sneaking in and out of places he had no business sneaking in and out of but he knew that wouldn't do any good either. "And my baby Andrew, his walk is fast paced and full of energy."

"Where is Andrew?" Cav asked. The last time he had seen his youngest brother the boy had been nine and stepping on his boot heels. That had been ten years before.

"It is impossible to tell." Evelyn replied sadly. "He enjoys playing cards and doesn't stay in one place long."

Cav had learned in letters from his brother years ago that the hyperactive boy fancied himself a clever gambler. He guessed the reason Andrew didn't stay in one place too long was because people got real tired of losing all their money to him.

"How have you been, son?" Evelyn asked gently. Cav sighed and ran his hand over his whiskered face.

"I've been fine." he lied. "Working hard."

"You work too hard. You need to take the time to enjoy life. You never know what you might find if you'd just slow down."

"Please don't, mama. I don't want to have this discussion right now." Cav warned. Every letter he had gotten from his mother the last three years had been a lecture in moving on with his life and finding new love. Cav had no interest in ever loving another woman. He had loved Leah with all his heart and she and their children had been ripped away from him in a single bloody afternoon.

"If not now when? I'm dying, Cav."

"Don't say that neither, mama." Cav stated angrily and Evelyn shrugged.

"At least you're here now. It would do my old heart good when I die if I know that all my boys will be okay."

"We'll be just fine, mama." Evelyn shook her head sadly, her blue eyes taking on a faraway look and then she yawned loudly. "Get you some rest, mama." Cav said gently. He quickly kissed her cold forehead and then turned abruptly and left the room, closing the door behind him.

He went to the mantle, knowing he needed to collect his thoughts and emotions before he stepped back outside where Jamison was still waiting on the porch. He saw the picture of he and his brothers that had been taken eleven years before.

Andrew was eight and looking like the high energy rugrat he had been as he looked up at Cav. Ian had been eleven, Cav was seventeen and Jamison eighteen. The day after the picture had been taken Jamison had moved away to become a U.S. Marshall. Cav felt the strongest sense of shame he had ever felt when he realized that the one thing his mother had always asked for, to see all four of her boys together again, probably wasn't going to happen.

Finding Andrew and Ian would be like finding needles in a haystack.

Quickly Cav wiped his face to hide any evidence of the tear that had streaked his cheek and he headed out the door.

"How long have you been here?" He asked his brother as he sat down in the rocking chair to take some weight off his leg for a while.

"A little over a week. I was in Dodge when I got the letter. I about killed two horses getting here so fast."

"I was in the middle of Wyoming." Cav replied. Jamison turned his gaze from the mountainside in front of them to his brother and blew out a puff of cigar smoke.

"Is that where you've been hiding then."

"I wasn't hiding." Cav argued.

"I know you hate me, Cav, but there wasn't anything I could have done back then. There wasn't no evidence. No trail. No idea who had done that to Leah and the babies or....."

"Shut-up!" Cav roared as he rose to his feet in a rush of anger. "Don't you talk about my family, you asshole. You didn't do a damn thing to help me! Not a damn thing!"

"You want to fight me, Cav? Will that make you feel better? I didn't kill your wife and kids but I'll let you beat me for it if that's what you need to do." Jamison said angrily as he tossed his cigar into a puddle beside the porch and turned to face his brother.

For a moment Cav thought about taking that swing at his older brother but then he thought about their mama laying on her deathbed and shook his head.

"I ain't gonna do that to mama, but you need to stay clear of me, Jamison. As far as I'm concerned I ain't got an older brother." With that Cav stormed off the porch and around the back of the house and Jamison sighed as he went to the rocking chair and sat down.

His biggest regret in life was that he hadn't been able to do a thing to catch his sister in law and niece and nephews killer. It wasn't just Cav that had lost family that day but you couldn't tell that stubborn man a thing.