The Woodsman's Rose Read online

  THE WOODSMAN’S ROSE

  a Novel by

  Gifford MacShane

  Donovan Family Saga Book 2

  THE WOODSMAN’S ROSE

  Copyright 2020: Gifford MacShane

  Cover Created with Book Brush

  Photo courtesy of Enrique Lopez Garre via Pixabay

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, business establishments, locales, or persons living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior permission of the copyright owner/publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

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  Dedication

  For Jack & Janet,

  a love story for the ages.

  Chapter 1

  Late Spring, 1886

  Breakfast was never a formal event in the Donovan home, but since four of the nine siblings had moved on, it sometimes seemed quite staid. Today though, as Daniel padded down the stairs from his room, the conversation emanating from the kitchen was more animated than usual. He pushed through the swinging doors and poured his first cup of coffee, listening to his youngest brother expound on the merits of his pony.

  “Dad, she’s too small. She’s a kid’s horse!”

  His father made no response as Daniel took his seat at the long table, across from his younger siblings. He murmured thanks to his mother as she set a plate of scrambled eggs before him, helped himself to ham and biscuits, then turned his attention back to Jake. The boy was sixteen, his school days over. Daniel agreed it was time to graduate from the pretty black filly he’d raised as a pet, but he held his own counsel.

  “If I’m gonna be a cowboy, I need a cow pony,” Jake said. “Fancy’s too small for cutting steers. Besides, she’s scared of ’em. And on top of that, my legs are just too long for her now.”

  John Patrick drew thoughtfully on his pipe. “And so?”

  “So I need a horse I can work the cattle with. A big horse!” Jake’s voice cracked into an octave above its usual range; his glance darted around, daring them all to laugh.

  Daniel stifled a chuckle. In spite of the absurd vocal movement, the boy’s argument was sound. A cowboy couldn’t ride a filly, no matter how pretty, if his stirrups couldn’t be properly lengthened.

  His father’s silent gaze gave the youth no encouragement, but there was a twinkle in his eye those familiar with it might have noticed. The old man was nearing his seventh decade and looked much younger. His iron-gray hair was still abundant, the fingers that grasped his pipe still strong and straight. In times of stress they might tremble a little, but no one was ever brave—or foolhardy—enough to remark upon it.

  Jake fidgeted in his chair and his face began to turn red, a sure sign of temper.

  “Mustangs out in the canyon,” Daniel offered in a voice made gruff by a childhood accident, amusement hidden by his long mustache.

  “Umm-hmm,” responded John Patrick.

  “Whaa...? OH!” Comprehension bloomed on Jake’s face and left him speechless. His brothers had captured or foaled their own horses, and he’d have to do the same. He shot a grateful look at Daniel, turned to his father again.

  “Can I go and get me one?”

  “Umm-hmm.” John Patrick rapped his pipe lightly against the table and, in his thick Irish brogue, added, “You’ll need some help.”

  “Will you help me, Daniel?” Jake’s request was almost a demand.

  “Well... I’ve got a lot of work lined up out in the canyon.”

  “I can help you with it. I’ll do half of what you’ve got to do if you help me catch a pony.”

  “All right, kid,” Daniel said. “You be ready to leave right after chores. We’ll work for Adam and Brian awhile, then go take a look at those mustangs.”

  The boy jumped up, knocking his chair over in the process. He skipped around in a circle, hooting his delight. Impetus drove him out the kitchen door, but he was soon back, sitting down to his half-finished bowl of oatmeal, not even reacting to the hilarity of his family.

  WITH THEIR MORNING chores complete, Daniel and Jake rode west to the canyon known as Rocking Chair Ranch. It was the family home of Jesse Travers, now married to the eldest of the Donovan sons, Adam. Adam’s twin, Brian, lived there with them as well.

  As they rode, Daniel listened in bemused silence as Jake blathered on and on about the horse he hoped to catch, never once asking what work he’d volunteered for. By the time Daniel could turn the conversation, they’d arrived at the trail’s end to see a small gray cabin set among the cottonwoods. Jesse jumped up from her seat on the porch swing, putting aside a bowl of half-shucked peas.

  “There you are!” Her big green eyes flashed at them, and her tawny hair rippled in the breeze. “Hey, Jake, it’s good to see you.” Her soft voice was flavored with a deep Southern drawl.

  “Came to help,” the boy said. “Then me and Daniel are gonna catch a mustang.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Jesse tilted her head at Daniel. “How’d he rope you into that?”

  “Volunteered. Dad wouldn’t let him go alone.”

  “I should say not! Come in and have some coffee. Adam and Brian went into town, but they should be back any minute.”

  Inside the cabin was spotless, the old wood stove recently blacked so it shone like obsidian, the red gingham curtains and tablecloth adding cheerful notes to the space that served as both kitchen and living room. Daniel helped Jesse as she gathered settings for the table, for she was a tiny woman, coming barely to his chest. He studied her obliquely—his sister-in-law was physically fragile, and the miscarriage she’d suffered in the fall had been compounded by a serious illness. That tragedy, coupled with a past she rarely discussed, still haunted her at times. His heart rejoiced to see the sureness of her movements and the healthy glow in her cheeks. And her face, like the weather, was sunny today.

  “Sure smells good in here,” Jake said.

  “Rebecca made soap this morning,” Jesse told him. Rebecca Johnson, Jesse’s childhood Mammy, had moved back to the canyon from Prescott during Jesse’s illness.

  “Doesn’t smell like any soap I ever used!”

  Jesse giggled. “It’s got lilac flowers in it, and honey. She always makes it for me.”

  “Where is she, anyhow?”

  “She went after some berries. But we made these before she left.” Jesse whisked the cloth off a plate piled high with corn muffins; Jake’s fingers snaked out to grab one before they even reached the table. “Help yourself! You, too, Daniel, if he’s leaving you any.”

  Jake turned scarlet. He tried to talk but his mouth was already crammed full; he was still sputtering around the crumbs when Rebecca came in. Daniel poked him on the shoulder, so he swallowed hard and gulped some coffee. “’Scuse me. These muffins are real good.”

  Rebecca gave him a smile that eased his embarrassment as his hand hovered over the plate once more. Tall and spare, her graying hair smoothed into a bun, she stored her empty basket on a high shelf.

  “Go ahead,” said Jesse, laughing. “That’s what they’re here for!”

  “Strawberries aren’t quite ripe,” Rebecca said in a soft, cultured Southern voice. “Maybe next week.”

  “
Oh, foo! I was really in the mood for some strawberry pie.”

  “We’ve still got some canned peaches, if you can make do with them.” Rebecca’s eyes, as deep a brown as her face, softened at Jesse’s bright smile.

  “Is your pie as good as your muffins?” Jake asked.

  “Who’s got muffins?” Brian’s voice boomed through the room as he filled up the door, his wild red hair identical to Jake’s.

  “Better get one quick!” Daniel advised him. “Jake’s about eaten ’em all.”

  Brian grabbed the plate of muffins and moved it to the far end of the table. “Don't you touch that,” he growled, wagging a finger. “I’ll break your arm right off.”

  Daniel made a skeptical noise in his throat—violence was no part of his gigantic brother’s nature. He’d been known to catch spiders in the house and put them in the garden.

  “Where’s your twin?” Daniel asked.

  “Puttin’ up the hosses. Why’d ya bring the kid?”

  “Paying his debt in advance.” Daniel told him of the mustang hunt they planned, then had to explain it once more when Adam came in.

  As different from Brian as a panther is from a sequoia, Adam had the lean build of a range rider and the quiet, dangerous grace of a prowling cat. His black hair hung down over his collar and his bright blue eyes strayed often to his wife as coffee and muffins were passed around along with the conversation. The topic turned finally to the weather and the possibility of drought; after an early winter full of sleet and ice, snow had barely fallen and the spring rains had been light.

  “Dad said to tell you he’s planning to run more cattle in here if it doesn’t rain soon,” Daniel said.

  “Plenty of room out by the lake,” Adam answered, “and with good water, they don’t need as much feed.” He scraped his chair back, then stood behind Jesse and dropped a kiss on her head.

  “Guess we better get t’ work,” Brian said. “Corral ain’t gonna build itself.”

  AS THE SUN BEGAN TO dip behind the cabin, Daniel and Jake walked to the western end of the canyon. Two miles on, a beaver dam had created a lake where wild mustangs would come down to water every morning and evening.

  After climbing a terrace beside the brook that fed the lake, they watched the horses in silence for several moments. The lake itself measured about ten acres in a natural oval bowl. Hundreds of cattle dotted the fields on each side, a few of them mixing with the horses as they drank.

  “Sure is pretty,” Jake said.

  Daniel didn’t reply. The glory of nature was something he never took for granted and here, where high white clouds scudded across a sky as blue as the water, where the deep green of the firs contrasted with the glossy leaves of tipu and the feathery fingers of ferns, where the striated canyon walls were a symphony of rust and brown―here, his soul was always at peace.

  As they stood together, the difference between the brothers was almost startling. Daniel had broad shoulders and the lean body of an athlete, the powerful thighs of a runner. He wore buckskin from head to foot, a red bandanna tied tight around his neck to hide the scar from the accident that had affected his voice. His sleek auburn hair trailed over his collar, and his mustache hid a sensitive mouth. He carried a rifle in his left hand; in his right boot a long knife lay against his leg.

  As broad of shoulder as Daniel, Jake had exceptionally long arms and legs. His body seemed to consist of many angles, all at odds with one another. Where his brother stood with a silent compact grace, Jake was constantly in motion, and he moved like a fractious colt. The bright red hair he’d inherited from his mother was ruffled by the breeze. His eyes were light blue and ginger freckles dotted his face and hands. The boy was already tall, and was shooting up so rapidly Daniel was sure his own six-foot-two-inch height would be surpassed before the summer’s end. Yet their faces were alike―broad brow, strong straight nose, squared chin. Different as they were, they both looked remarkably like their father.

  Jake first focused on the huge white stallion that was the herd’s leader, but Daniel was quick to set him straight. “That old man has been free for too many years. You might catch him, though I doubt it. Even if you did, you’d never tame him. You don’t want a horse you have to fight every time you put a saddle on him.

  “Besides, Jake, he’s earned his freedom. See those scars on his flanks and chest? He won that herd. He fought for them and won them, and he’ll hold on to them until he’s too old to fight any more. Then some young stallion’ll come along and beat him, and he’ll slink away and die. If he doesn’t die fighting.

  “No, little brother, if you want him, you’ll have to catch him yourself. I won't dethrone a king.”

  So Jake picked out a frisky young black with three white feet and a diamond-shaped blaze ending at his nose.

  “A lot of horse,” Daniel commented. “See that sorrel mare he sticks with?”

  “Yeah.” The boy answered without enthusiasm.

  “She may be his dam. Alec likes to work with them in pairs. If we catch them both, you can give the mare to him as payment for his help.”

  “Won't he be coming with us?”

  “Not the way things stand right now. He’s angry and it doesn’t look like he’ll ever get over it.”

  “Can’t you just tell him?” the boy asked. Alec had told everyone, it seemed, that Daniel knew who had killed his mother the previous spring. “Wouldn’t everything be okay then?”

  “No, Jake. In the first place, I have no proof and the man who killed Elena’s gone. There’s nothing we could do to him. But he has kin who’d be shamed by finding out―people who are innocent and don’t deserve to be hurt.” Daniel sighed deep inside. Alec Twelve Trees―his friend, his brother in spirit―was so intractable, so unable to see the harm he might cause. “And in the second place, there’s such a thing as honor. If I found out something about you that you’re ashamed of, would you want me to tell Alec? Just because he’s my friend and he wants to know?”

  “No. I wouldn’t think you were much of a man if you did that.”

  “Exactly. So I have to weigh my conscience against what Alec wants. I just wish he could understand.”

  Jake reached for his shoulder. Daniel covered the boy’s hand with his in silent acceptance of the sympathy he offered, then shook off his gloom and said, “We need a plan. First we’ll have to find out how they get into the canyon. Then we’ll figure out how to make a trap to keep them here. But before we do any scouting around out there, you’ll need a new pair of boots.”

  “These are new.” Jake displayed one of the high-heeled black boots he’d tucked his denim pants into. With the fancy stitching that was the local bootmaker’s trademark, they were his most prized possession.

  “They’re also loud.” Daniel slapped his own knee-high buckskins. “You’ll get a lot closer to them in these.”

  “Where do we get ‘em?”

  “You don’t get them. You make them.”

  “What! I wanna be a cowboy, not a bootmaker.”

  On the other side of the lake, the white stallion pricked up his ears, but Daniel only shrugged. “You wanna be a wild horse hunter and you gotta have the gear.”

  “Can’t I just borrow a pair of yours?”

  “Jake ... come put your foot over here.”

  “Huh. Guess I’d have to cut my toes off first, like those girls in the Cinderella story.”

  “Don’t let anyone ever tell you you’re slow, kid!”

  IT TOOK THREE EVENINGS to make the boots, and they spent their days working on the corral. At one point, Daniel’s quick ears caught the boy voicing a complaint to Adam, whom he held in an admiration that was close to worship.

  Leaning against his shovel, Adam focused bright blue eyes on the boy. “Before you ask for a man’s advice, you have to assume he knows more than you do. So when he decides to help you out, it only makes sense to go along with what he says. If there’s anyone around here who knows tracking, it’s Daniel. You know what the Navajo call him?”<
br />
  “The Woodsman.” In sudden curiosity, Jake asked, “Did you have to make boots, too?”

  “Nope.” Adam’s left eyebrow curled up at the middle as he grinned. “Apples was born on the ranch. Right in the corral. I just had to help his dam foal him.” He slapped his brother’s shoulder. “Looks like you picked the hard way. But stick it out. And listen to your brother―he knows what he’s doing. It’ll be worth it in the long run.”

  “Knowin’ Daniel,” Brian put in, “I think you got off real easy. Be thankful he didn’ make you catch the deer first!”

  Chapter 2

  Jake returned to his tasks cheerfully, and when the boots were finished, he and Daniel took to the rocky trails, searching for the mustangs’ entrance to the canyon.

  They set up a permanent camp in a grove of pines near the lake. On the first day, the brothers observed the herd from the opposite shore. They seemed to be entering the canyon through some concealed gap in the wall, coming down the ledges where the cattle couldn’t climb out.

  As they sat by the campfire after dinner, Daniel explained his plan to Jake. “We’ll climb up to the canyon’s rim a few miles west of here and work back along the ledges to find the gap in the wall.”

  “Why don’t we just follow them?” Jake asked.

  “That might only give us one chance at them. If we follow them out in the morning, we’d be leaving our scent on their trail. If we didn’t manage to catch them before evening, they’d turn around for sure as soon as they caught wind of us.

  “That old king’s pretty crafty,” the woodsman continued, “or he’d never have lived this long. He’d either find another way in or he’d take his herd off the range completely. Either way, it wouldn’t help us.”

  “OK. But once we find the entrance, how’re we gonna catch ’em?”

  “I can’t tell you until I see where they come in. If we’re lucky, there’ll be some kind of natural barrier we can use. Maybe this canyon will lead into another canyon we can turn into a trap. Maybe we’ll have to track them all over creation.