Steel's Redemption

PrologueArkansas Territory, 1867 The bandits came at the height of Riley’s fifteenth summer, just as the corn was starting to get tall and before they separated the yearling calves from the herd for the drive to Kansas City. Riley’s father, the Honorable Clarence Spencer, stepped out of his home to greet the men, alerted to their approach by Riley’s own hollers. The heat disrupted his vision, and he’d been expecting friends from town that afternoon. They didn’t get too much company on their spread, as far away as it was from just about anything of interest, and Riley was like any other young man his age. He craved conversation with somebody his own age—Steel didn’t count. He and his momma both claimed he was just a year older than Riley, but Riley secretly doubted them. There were six, all mounted on monster horses. Riley might have seen the glint of their guns sooner if not for the horses. He’d never seen another creature like them on God’s earth. Later, when he thought about those horses, he wondered whose stock they’d been stolen from. He did see the sun reflecting one long, silver barrel, and he tried to shout a warning. It was lost in the gun’s report, a loud explosion that echoed across the plains and startled the animals into a flurry. All but the horses, who didn’t even flinch at the sound of the gun going off so close to their ears. Riley had been born and raised near the border of the Oklahoma territory, and he’d never seen a war horse until that moment. He hadn’t seen a trained regimen of hungry ex-Confederate soldiers either, and didn’t understand what was happening until the second gunshot threatened to burst his ears. Somebody pushed him to the ground from behind, covering his body and holding him in place. The shooting began in earnest then, a volley of bullets flying overhead, each one accompanied with a roar of thunder. And some of that thunder—God help them all—some of that thunder was followed by a human shriek of pain, a cry to God for mercy, a wet groan and final gasp. Riley tried to lift his head, but whoever held him down pushed his head to the dirt. Riley didn’t just hold still after that, he played dead, praying for the soul of his father, and his stepmother, his stepbrother, even the free darkies, and finally himself. He made his bargains with God. He offered everything he had, though he possessed very little, and he lived a lifetime of terror in those endless seconds of unexpected violence. When it stopped, the silence wasn’t the relief Riley expected. The ground vibrated with ominous warning as the horses galloped toward the house. A hoof clipped his leg and another came within a hairsbreadth of crushing his skull. Riley didn’t move. The weight on top of him was perfectly still as well, and Riley hoped they were just good at pretending, too. As the men disappeared, Riley held his breath for a full minute and realized in those sixty seconds that they were burning down his home and the man on top of him wasn’t breathing, either. Another lifetime passed and the bandits took off, shouting and shooting their pistols and shotguns off again. Thick, acrid smoke filled Riley’s nose, crawled down his throat, and settled deep in his lungs. Riley tried to move and felt the same pressure on the top of his head, urging him down as before. This time, though, Riley wasn’t distracted by imminent death, and he realized it was his father’s hand holding his head down. His father’s unmoving, heavy hand. Riley swallowed down the sudden impulse to cry and crawled out from beneath the dead weight, covering his mouth in horror as he saw what remained of the only parent he’d ever known. He’d been shot at least four times—or at least there were four exit wounds in his back—and there was no way of knowing if he’d saved his son with his dying breath or if it was no more than accident that he’d been saved. Mrs. Coleman would have said it was God’s will to spare his life. The thought of his stepmother snapped him out of his daze and sent him racing toward the house, running at the furious heat and the flames reaching out for more, hungrily lapping across the dry yard toward the barn where the cows bawled their fear. The door hung open, half knocked off its hinges, and Riley kicked his way into the smoky darkness shouting her name. Smoke clung to his eyes, cut off his breath, and made him dizzy, but he ran from room to room, voice growing hoarse from the heat and raw panic. He finally found her in the kitchen pantry, slumped in the corner, body riddled with bullets. Riley scooped her up, determined not to let anything stop him, not even the growing wall of flames between him and his only exit. The heat singed his face and hair, threatened to burn him to ash before he ever reached the blue sky. He staggered into the yard, carrying her just a few feet beyond the remains of his father and falling to his knees. He set her down as delicately as he could, calling her by Ma and Mrs. Coleman by habit, and then Mrs. Spencer, and then finally, by her Christian name. She never responded. “No…no…” “Riley? Riley? Riley!” Riley couldn’t look up as Steel’s frantic shouts pressed through the numbness. “What happened? Riley! Who did this?” He could only shake his head. Where had Steel been? He could have stopped this from happening. But he’d left two days before on a mysterious errand he never bothered to tell anybody about, and now they were dead. They were dead, murdered, and it was all gone. Riley didn’t realize that he was actually screaming the words like a hysterical woman, tears and impotent anger and very real, bitter fear pouring out of him with each shouted syllable. He didn’t stop until Steel grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him so hard his teeth rattled. His mouth clamped close and that’s when Steel pulled him against his chest in an embrace like he’d never shared with another man. “Cry if you need to right now. Go ahead, because after today you can’t ever do it again. You’ve got to be the man around here.” “Me?” Riley’s voice was muffled, but still audible. Steel didn’t loosen his hold. “What about you?” “I’m not going to be around.” “You’re not leaving me.” “I’m going to go after the sons a bitches who did this.” Riley pulled free of his arms and shook his head. “You don’t even know who they are. They’re long gone by now.” “I’ll get them. Don’t doubt that.” He grinned a little wildly. “My daddy gave me two things before he left. My name and his gun.” Steel sounded confident, but Riley didn’t really see how either one of those things would help Steel find a group of well-armed bandits who rode and shot like nobody Riley had ever seen. “What about me? What am I supposed to do? Everything’s gone.” “Not everything. You’ve still got the cattle, and they still need to be taken to the train yards.” “How am I supposed to do that? I can’t even hire a crew.” “You’re telling me that you don’t know how to go to the bank and get credit off the herd, then use that money to pay half the salary of a good crew? Your daddy’s been raising you to run this place, hasn’t he? And I’ll be back before the winter.” The grin grew a touch maniacal now. Riley had no choice but to nod at his stepbrother—now the only family he had left in the world. “I know what to do.” “Good. Come on. Can’t stand here all day. We’ve got work to do.” They buried their parents in the family plot behind the smoky, ashy remains of their home, marking each grave with a humble cross until such time Riley could arrange for proper monuments. That night, they slept in the barn, Steel pulling Riley into his arms and against his body without a word. Riley soaked up the heat and the comfort of the embrace, staring into the darkness long after Steel fell into a fitful sleep. He’d have to use part of the credit to buy lumber for a new house, then there was the harvest, the slaughter, preparations to make for the winter, and a million other things that were now his sole responsibility. Steel rode away at dawn with a cocky smile and a promise to be back for the harvest. Riley began the long, slow process of putting his world back in order. It didn’t occur to him to sell until it occurred to him that Steel wouldn’t be coming back—five harvests after the one Steel promised to return for.