Texas Rain

CHAPTER 1

Texas Hill Country

1854

Travis McMurray watched storm clouds roll in from the north as he pushed his horse into a gallop and headed toward the Guadalupe River and his family's land just beyond. The sky darkened around him from dusty blue to gray, mirroring his mood. Here, in these rolling hills, lay the only place he had ever felt he belonged. Here also lay memories he would spend a lifetime trying to forget.

His powerful mount danced at the edge of the muddy riverbank while Travis looked for the exact place to cross. He ignored his tired muscles, tugged his hat low, and rushed into the water that separated Whispering Mountain Ranch from the world.

He could smell it now, feel it on his skin and in his heart. Home.

A faint flicker of sunlight blinked off the hills, welcoming him back. The river swirled. He leaned low over the horse's neck, calming the animal with words as they fought the current toward the far shore. A stand of brush hid the only place where a horse could climb the steep bank beyond. His father had planted the bushy trees almost thirty years ago. Now, only Travis and his two brothers, Teagen and Tobin, knew the secret entrance to the ranch.

Travis smiled. One of a hundred secrets, he thought. His father had planned well. Whispering Mountain stood like a fortress in the middle of a wide-open Texas.

He reached the far bank and slipped behind the cedar that grew almost as tall as live oaks. If enemies followed him, they'd think they'd blinked and he'd simply disappeared, horse and all. Travis moved along the shadowy cave-like path, half green with cedar, half black with rock. He slid from his mount and led the horse as they climbed. When he saw sky a few minutes later, Travis inhaled deeply. He'd made it back in one piece, and those wanting him dead would have to wait another day.

After almost two years he was finally home. He swung onto the saddle and raced toward the ranch house, suddenly hungry to see his family.

He'd fought one too many battles across the rapidly changing landscape of a newborn nation. He needed to be home where nothing changed. He wanted to sleep without having to listen for trouble approaching. He longed to relax and remember who he'd been before he wore a badge. Travis had heard one too many outlaws promise revenge lately. Maybe if he took some time off, their threats would stop echoing in his mind.

His sister, Sage, watched from the back porch as he neared. He spotted her a moment before she recognized him. The McMurray boys all had their father's wide shoulders and height, but Sage was small, even as a woman. If she'd been a colt, he would have named her Wildfire. The fact that all her brothers were older and bigger never frightened her for a moment. When she was younger, she'd often-stood before the three of them and threatened to take them all on in a fight.

Now she jumped over the railing and ran toward him, her long braid flying behind her. Though dressed in trousers and shirt, no one would mistake her for a boy.

As she ran at full speed to him, Travis lowered from his horse in time to catch her and swing her around as he'd always done. They were both laughing when they hugged.

Travis had been ten when she was born. They'd lost their father the March before. Four months later their mother died. Neighbors said their mother, Autumn McMurray, never recovered from the birth of Sage, but the boys saw the light go out of her eyes when she learned of her husband's death. Autumn stayed alive long enough to give Sage life, and then she joined her husband, Andrew, in death.

As he always did, Travis looked for a hint of his mother in Sage's face. But she had blue eyes, not brown, and hair streaked with sunshine, not dark and earthy. Their mother's Apache blood reflected in him alone, not Sage or his brothers. "You filled out." He sat her down. "In several places."

"It was bound to happen." Sage laughed. "You've been gone so long I could have had a batch of kids by now."

He shook his head. "No. With those clothes, I'm guessing you're still an old maid."

"Eighteen is hardly an old maid, and what else would I be comfortable in? I had to wear my brothers' hand-me-downs most of my life." She looped her arm in his and they moved toward the house. "Besides, I plan on changing the 'old maid' part soon."

"Got the unfortunate prey in sight?" He tugged at her braid thinking it didn't matter how old she thought she was, she'd always be his kid sister. "Maybe I could wing him for you so he couldn't run so fast."

When she made a face, he added, "Just a flesh wound, nothing serious. Some men think better after they've lost a little blood."

Travis wasn't surprised when she tried to trip him.

"I don't know who yet," she admitted. "But the annual spring dance is tomorrow night at Elmo Anderson's barn. Teagen and Tobin don't even listen when I talk about it, but now you're here, you can take me. It'll give me a chance to look at the quality of the pickings." She hugged his arm. "I'm so glad you're here. I was down to begging Martha to escort me."

Travis laughed. The old housekeeper wouldn't budge from this place if a herd of buffalo crossed McMurray land.

"Now, you're elected," Sage said simply, as if he'd solved a problem.

Travis groaned. He had no doubt Sage would have her pick of the single men once she set her mind to marriage, but the thought of going to a barn dance made him wish he'd checked the dates before asking for a month's leave from the Texas Rangers. One annual barn dance shouldn't have been hard to miss; after all, Sage had mentioned it in her last two letters. He mumbled an oath at his lack of planning.

Sage slapped at his arm. "Stop that. One of my brothers has to take me off this property, or I'll never marry. I'll end up like the three of you, single forever. Tobin won't even consider going with me. He might have to talk to someone not related to him. And Teagen gave his standard answer that he didn't have time for such nonsense."

As always, Travis felt her pain, even now when most of it was worry over nothing. "All right, if I can get the smell of the trail off me by tomorrow, I'll take you, but don't expect me to dance." Except for a few people, he'd never found the townsfolk particularly friendly.

"You're not going to believe how the town around Elmo's trading post has grown up. We've got a lean-to that a traveling blacksmith uses, a barn and corral for folks passing through, and there's talk of framing out a church this summer. A stage line may come through before long, and when that happens we'll need a hotel and some place for folks to eat. We'll have a regular town."

Travis shook his head. "I'm not interested in being part of any town. I'll go to the dance and just hang out in the shadows and make sure you're all right until it's time to leave."

"Oh, wonderful." Sage stepped on the porch. "Then everyone will say, there's poor Spinster McMurray and one of her skulking brothers." From the second step of the porch she stood eye level with him and pointed at his nose. "One dance, so I won't have to worry about being a wildflower."

"It's wallflower, kid, and that you'll never be." He grinned. "We should have never taught you to talk. I told Teagen it would be a mistake." He started to step on the porch, but her hand on his chest stopped him.

"You're not coming into Martha's house until you strip. She'll make me help with spring cleaning all over again if I let you track in half the mud in Texas. You swam the Guadalupe instead of taking the bridge, didn't you?"

"It's faster," Travis answered as he fried to pass her.

She didn't move.

He raised an eyebrow. "You can't mean I'm to strip out here? Don't you think I'm a little old for that?"

"We've both seen you, and all your old parts, a thousand times." Sage moved to the door. "I'll tell Martha to have food ready by the time you're finished. You'll find soap on the washstand. I'll bring out a towel and a clean set of your clothes."

Travis swore as he moved to the side of the house. He'd stripped off all but his pants when she reappeared with a towel and clothes smelling of the cedar chest he'd left them in almost two years before.

Sage studied him. "These should still fit. You don't look a pound fatter. You've got a new scar on your shoulder."

"Took a bullet in a battle on the border last year. It went right through, so didn't see any need in worrying the family."

Sage nodded as if he made sense. "You're tanned so dark, if one of the cowhands rides by, he might shoot you for an Apache."

He didn't smile. "I am Apache."

"Half," Sage said. "Just like all of us."

Travis pulled water from the well. Though Sage tried, her words never made him feel better. His high cheekbones and dark eyes marked him as mixed blood while his siblings could have been as Irish as their last name. "Lucky me," he mumbled as he splashed water over his head. "Maybe they'll shoot the half that's Apache. Problem is, which half would that be?"

When he shook the water from his hair, Sage had gone. He grabbed the lye soap and began to scrub away a month's worth of trail dust.

Martha came out once to ask if he wanted a steak or ham. The chubby little woman didn't even smile at him, which didn't surprise Travis. Martha hadn't liked any of the McMurray boys since the day she arrived from New Orleans in answer to an ad. Teagen told Travis once that Martha had just gotten out of prison when she'd traveled to Texas for the job, but the boys had to hire her because she'd been the only one who applied after their mother died. She'd loved baby Sage dearly, but made the brothers sleep in the barn most of that first summer until they decided to act "house-broke" as she called it.

To Travis's knowledge, Martha had never left the grounds around the house, but she stood before Teagen each month and took her pay in cash. She would quote Travis her list of supplies before he went to town and insisted on paying for any items for her personal use. In the eighteen years since his parents died, food had been on the table every meal. Good, hot, solid food. That, Travis decided, said more than a smile.

"You going to the Spring Dance?" Travis yelled as Martha turned to go back inside.

"No," she answered simply. "Sage is waiting to cut your hair. Best show some sense and get out of the rain before God mistakes you for a tree and strikes you with lightning."

Travis was so wet he hardly noticed it had started to rain. "I know," he said, remembering what followed all her warnings. "If I get dead, it'll mean more work for you."

"Right," she mumbled into the thunder.

He grabbed his clothes and made it to the porch just as a downpour hit. The log home his father built stood solid against the storm as Travis dressed on the wide porch. Ten years ago they'd finished out the second floor for the men, but everyone called the main part of the house Martha's. From the moment she arrived, she'd treated the place like her own. That first year "Don't get mud on my clean floors" had been a constant echo around the place. A few years later, when Teagen and Travis had been almost men, she'd added, "No smoking or drinking in my house." They'd challenged her only once and watched their supper fed to the hogs.

Travis smiled when he entered the house. Nothing had changed. His father's tartan carried from Ireland still hung on the north wall. The beads his mother wore at her wedding were looped across the McMurray Clan colors. An Apache girl and an Irish boy had fallen in love and stood against the world.

He crossed to the kitchen and wasn't surprised Martha had cooked a table full of food. While the storm raged, Travis ate and talked of his life as a Ranger. Martha stood by the stove acting as if she wasn't listening. Sage sat across the table taking in every word. If she'd been born a boy, she'd be riding with him by now, for Andrew McMurray taught his children to love Texas-he'd even died for its freedom.

After dinner Travis watched the sun set over the newly washed earth as he smoked one of Teagen's thin cigars on the porch. He was full and cleaned up to a point that he almost looked like a gentleman. Almost, he thought, for there was no amount of scrubbing that could take the wildness out of him. Part of him had to roam, had to live on the edge, had to be alone. He knew, without a doubt, that the west section nearest the hills would never have a house built on it even though the brothers called it Travis's. His place would remain pasture land forever.

Sage moved up beside him. "Teagen and Tobin probably won't make it in tonight, what with the storm. They'd come if they knew you were here."

Travis smiled down at his little sister. "They're staying away because they fear you'll badger them about going to the dance."

She shrugged. "Maybe. Maybe they finally decided to climb Whispering Mountain and sleep on the summit."

Travis looked west to where the hills were almost mountain height. One stood out, purple in the night. "Maybe none of us will ever climb the mountain." He and his siblings had all grown up on the legend. The Apache believed that when a man slept on the summit of Whispering Mountain, he'd dream his future.

"Father did," Sage reminded Travis. "Right after he brought mother here, he climbed the mountain one night."

"He dreamed his death," Travis whispered into the evening shadows, wondering what it must have been like for his father, newly married and not yet eighteen, to have dreamed that he would die before he turned thirty and leave his family behind.

Sage slipped her arm through her brother's and stared at the mountain. "The dream saved us," she said, as if she'd been old enough to remember. "If he hadn't dreamed, he wouldn't have prepared. If he hadn't left Teagen all the detailed plans, the three of you wouldn't have been able to save the ranch."

Travis closed his eyes, wondering how long he'd have to live before the memories would fade. His fattier had gone to fight for Texas Independence. He'd left them alone as he headed for a mission called Goliad. Andrew McMurray had lined his sons up on the porch and hugged each one. Travis remembered thinking his father might crush his ribs with his hold. Then he told them to look in his desk for instructions if something happened to him. "Don't forget," he'd said as he rode off to join the fight for Texas.

Three months later they got word that he'd been killed with hundreds of other Texans at a little mission. That night, the boys had gathered round their father's desk and opened the bottom drawer. His letter began, "If you are reading this, I'm not coming back." The writing was bold, direct, just as their father had always been. "Take care of your mother, and no matter what, hold the ranch."

The letter explained how Autumn, being Apache and a woman, could never claim the land as hers. But if the boys could keep everyone away until Teagen turned eighteen, then he could claim the ranch.

The last words written to Teagen, eleven, Travis, ten, and Tobin, just barely six, were simple: "Today, my sons, you have to become men."

Sage pulled Travis back to the present. "I wish I'd been there to help," she whispered as she rubbed her cheek against his shoulder.

"No, you don't. It was bad. He'd taught us to shoot and to ride. He'd built his ranch so that no one could come near the center. But there was nothing he could have done to prepare us for the men who came to take our land by force. As soon as word circulated that he was dead, there were those who thought they could step on the land and take all we owned."

Travis finished his cigar and said good night. He knew he wouldn't sleep, but he needed to be alone. The memories of those early days were too thick in his head to allow him to be good company. Sage seemed to understand.

Tomorrow he'd take her to the dance and try to make the best of it, but tonight he'd walk the boundary of Whispering Mountain Ranch with a rifle in his hand. He'd long since grown taller than his weapon, but memories would keep him company tonight. A part of the little boy who'd had to grow up at ten years old still haunted the man.