The Last Cahill Cowboy

by Jenna Kernan

  “Do you know what you’re putting me through? Are you really going to make me arrest my own brother?”

  “I didn’t know calling you from supper was illegal.”

  “I got a man outside says you drew your gun on him.”

  Chance came to his feet. “What?”

  “Are you drunk?”

  “No!”

  Bowie stepped forward, leaned in and sniffed. Chance’s temper flared, knowing that if it were anyone else the marshal would listen to what he had to say. But not his brother. Bowie had already made up his mind. Chance knew it from the ticking at his left eye and the set of his jaw. Bowie was dug in deep.

  “It was a mistake your coming back. You need to clear out.” That was Bowie, putting his job before his family again.

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “You’re leaving. Sooner is better.” Bowie spun and walked away as if that settled the matter.

  “Hold on now,” tried Chance.

  Bowie didn’t turn as he spoke. “I’ve got to see about the complaint and hope I don’t have to arrest you.”

  Chance tried again. “Bowie!”

  Bowie kept walking. Something bubbled up inside Chance, molten and icy all at once. A lifetime of being ignored and bossed around wrestled its way out. And suddenly he couldn’t take it anymore, not from Bowie. If Bowie wouldn’t listen, well, by God, he’d make him listen.

  Before he knew what he was doing, Chance had lifted the chair he’d been sitting on, swung it with one hand and thrown it like a Comanche spear. The chair sailed across the room. Someone screamed. Bowie spun and watched as the chair crashed through Leanna’s custom-made stained-glass window.

  Bowie’s jaw dropped as shards of brightly colored glass showered down like a broken rainbow. Both brothers turned to Leanna to see her face flame. She lifted her fists to her temples and shrieked.

  “Out! Both of you! Get out of my place!”

  Bowie made his escape first, trailed closely by Chance, who followed at a run. Chance thought he and Bowie were as tough as any man in Texas, but not tough enough to face Leanna. They fled like mule deer before a wildcat.

  In the street they paused, side by side, staring at the light now streaming through the gap where the window had been. The framing remained across the breach, bent and twisted, holding the chair like a huge leaden spider’s web.

  “You know I have to arrest you,” said Bowie, his voice now conversational.

  “That ought to keep Annie from killing me.”

  Bowie motioned with his head. “Come on.”

  Chance went along with Bowie to jail, hoping Leanna couldn’t get at him there.

  “Where’d she get the window?” asked Chance.

  “She hired some artist from St. Louis.”

  Chance hung his head.

  “Bowie, I never drew my gun tonight.”

  The window seemed to have calmed Bowie and he nodded. “I’ll get to the bottom of it. But for now, I can’t treat you any different than anyone else.”

  Whitaker, his deputy, met them at the jail and did a poor job of hiding his shock as Bowie led Chance to a cell, took his guns and locked him up.

  “What are the charges?” asked Whitaker.

  “Disturbing the peace, for now,” said Bowie.

  Bowie leaned against the doorjamb, folded his arms and stared at Chance. He didn’t look mad anymore, just disappointed. Suddenly, he looked exactly like their father.

  “I don’t even recognize you anymore.”

  “I’m trying to help.”

  “Well, then, stop trying.”

  “I still have something to tell you.”

  “Later,” said Bowie, and left him with his deputy, who at least offered him coffee. Chance could not believe he was going to spend the night in jail. It seemed like hours before his brother returned with a judge.

  “That’s him,” said Bowie.

  The judge stared at Chance and nodded. “So you’re the wild one. I’ve heard about you. I’m setting bail at a hundred dollars. You pay up and you can go. You are also paying damages for the window. Understand?”

  He nodded.

  “I’m only doing this because Bowie said you won’t run. You got any money?”

  Chance glanced at Bowie, not wanting him to know, but there was no helping it. He shook his head. He noticed Bowie’s eyes widen. Funny to be from the wealthiest family this side of Texas and be flat broke. But Quin had kept his word and poured all revenues back into the ranch, as he’d promised. Leanna had told him that Quin had made two more land purchases since they’d left. The 4C was bigger than ever, but it seemed there was none left for bail. Chance glared at Bowie, feeling the defiance flowing cold as spring runoff.

  “Then I guess you’ll be sleeping here,” said the judge.

  Chance glanced at Bowie. He looked him right in the eye and shook his head. “Not me, brother. I’m still so mad I could spit. And if I were you, I’d steer clear of Annie for the next, oh, I don’t know, six months.”

  “I still want to talk to you.”

  But Bowie left him again. Chance drank more coffee and thought about what Ellie had told him. From somewhere far off he heard a train whistle; he listened to the hum of the rails as a train passed through.

  Leanna came in and for one moment Chance thought that she was there to spring him. But for once, it seemed, Leanna had had enough.

  “Earl Thomas Cahill, you had no right to do that to my window.”

  It was odd to hear his given name. Everyone had called him Chance for as long as he could remember. He had been named after his father but spent a lifetime knowing he would never be his match. They should have named Quin after him.

  “I’m sorry, Annie. I just… I couldn’t get him to listen. He never listens.”

  “Maybe if you stopped shooting folks and breaking things, he’d have less paperwork and more time to chat.” She aimed a finger at him. “You’re paying for that window.”

  Leanna turned her back and headed out.

  “Wait a minute. Aren’t you going to spring me?”

  She made a sound that he recognized was not good. He gripped the bars as Leanna sashayed out the door.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chance had a long time to ponder the evening’s happenings and in the end two things plagued him. The first was the image of Leanna’s window shattering into a million sharp fragments of glass. The second disturbed him even more. It was Ellie, digging up the past. He’d forgotten to ask how she had learned Don had courted his mom and that troubled him. He just felt in his gut that she’d broken her word and asked questions. Leanna had been right, of course. Ellie would do anything to help them and he should have known better than to drag her into this mess.

  Bowie returned, still looking troubled but no longer livid. He drew up a stool and leaned forward, elbows on knees, hands clasped together like a man about to pray.

  His deputy hung in the doorway, leaning against the frame. Bowie glanced toward him. “Give us a minute, Glen.”

  His deputy started, and then made apologies as he disappeared.

  “I just finished talking to the drifter who said you pointed a gun at him, and his friend who said he’d witnessed you do the same.”

  Chance sat on the narrow wooden bed frame, which was bolted to the wall, one hand wrapped about the cold steel of the bars.

  “Bowie, I never…” His words trailed off as Bowie lifted a hand.

  “I’ll get to the point. They were saddle bums passing through, yet I found a ten-dollar gold piece on each. They couldn’t account for them until I threatened to arrest and throw them in a cell with you. They said some man at Hell’s Corner had paid them each to slander you. Either they don’t know his name or they aren’t saying. They’ve left town at my request.”

  “I told you.”

  Bowie nodded. “Looks like someone wants us at odds. So I suggest we let them think they’ve accomplished that.”

  “Shouldn’t be too hard. You ju
st treat me like you always do. That ought to convince anyone.”

  Bowie made a face. Was that chagrin? Chance watched his brother. He seemed to be struggling.

  “I don’t much approve of bounty hunters. Hurts me to see you in that line. But it’s your life, Chance. I just think you could do better.”

  “So, you ready to listen to what I have to say now?”

  Bowie nodded and Chance repeated what Ellie had turned up. When he finished, Bowie said, “If Don harbored ill will, I never saw it. Plus that was a long time ago.”

  “Still, it’s something.” He paused. “There’s more. I went out to speak to Fitzgerald.”

  Bowie drew close. “What about?”

  Chance motioned him close. Bowie leaned in and Chance repeated his story that he had come back to get his share of the land and sell it. Bowie listened; his eyebrows descended lower and lower over his intent blue eyes.

  “So he thinks you’re here to collect your inheritance?”

  Chance told Bowie that he’d conveyed the same thing to Womack on his first night in town and he had made no offer, but Fitzgerald had shown real interest.

  “Both Womack and Fitzgerald put in proposals for the depot. Either one might hold a grudge,” said Bowie.

  Chance related Fitzgerald’s offer to buy him out and his suggestion that Chance see Slocum.

  “That’s Pa’s old attorney. Quin still uses him.”

  “Might want to think on that,” said Chance. “Why would Fitzgerald recommend I use the same lawyer as my brother? Isn’t that a conflict of interest?”

  “Sure is.” Bowie pushed off the bars. “I better go talk to Slocum.”

  Chance stood, hands now both on the bars. “I’ll go with you.”

  “We’re at odds. Remember. Besides, I can’t run an investigation if you keep me so tied up I can’t get clear of the jail.”

  “Yeah, but you said that charge was false.”

  “I arrested you for disturbing the peace. That charge is genuine.”

  “I can go places you can’t, Bowie. You need me.”

  That stopped him. Chance knew the look. He was considering it. “Maybe.”

  “Maybe nothing. You have to abide by the law.”

  “So do you.”

  “No, Bowie. I don’t. No one expects me to and I won’t get caught.”

  “If you do, I’ll have to treat you like anyone else.”

  “I know that. And, Bowie?”

  He lifted his eyebrows and waited.

  “If I find him first, I’m killing him.”

  For once Bowie made no argument. Instead, he turned and walked away.

  Chance had settled in for the night, dragging the thin, scratchy gray blanket across his chest and lying on the cot. The blanket smelled musty as a wet dog. He tried to rest, but his mind was uneasy. Was Ellie safe?

  Chance closed his eyes and recalled the curve of her neck and how the long curling wisps of her hair danced around her face in the evening breeze. He felt his body becoming aroused.

  “Damn it,” he whispered, and then shouted, “Whitaker!”

  The deputy appeared a moment later.

  “Get me a chunk of wood. I want to do some whittling.” Carving always settled him.

  “You can’t have a knife in there.”

  “Well, I got one.” More than one, he thought. “You gonna take it from me?”

  The man’s eyes widened. “Nope.”

  “Then get me some wood.”

  “How big?”

  Chance held his hands about six inches apart and then used his thumb and forefinger to indicate the height.

  Whitaker left, returning a moment later with a branch from the stove box that he fed through the bars.

  He hovered as Chance reached in his pocket, his fingertips brushing soft cotton fabric. He absorbed the pang of sorrow as he withdrew his mother’s handkerchief carefully folded about his father’s pocket knife. He removed the knife, refolded the cloth, then set to work.

  Chance used his thumbnail to flip open the longest blade and began to shave off the bark. He felt his father most closely when he worked on wood. His dad had taught him how to hold a knife and how to carve. The connection endured. When stressed, Chance didn’t reach for a drink. He reached for a stick.

  Whitaker stared from the doorway. “What are you making?”

  He didn’t know yet. But it would come to him as he worked. It always did.

  “A spear to stab you to death. Now git.”

  But he didn’t. Chance wondered if he was losing his touch or if the bars between them had given Whitaker a spine. He glanced up at the man.

  “If I bring you a bucket will you use it for the shavings? Otherwise, Bowie will skin me faster than you can skin that stick.”

  Chance stopped whittling and looked up at the deputy. “Why do you work for him if he’s such a tyrant?”

  “Oh, pay’s decent and I get meals. Mostly it’s quiet.” Whitaker rubbed his neck and gave Chance a melancholy look. “Mostly.”

  Chance studied the man and then nodded. “I’ll use a bucket.”

  The deputy opened the cell. If Chance wanted to escape, here was his opportunity. Instead, he accepted the bucket and sat back down. Chance decided on a bird, a little brown bird that didn’t look like much but had a song like nobody’s business. He had the entire thing carved, when Whitaker appeared.

  “It’s a bird!”

  The man was bright as tarnished silver.

  “Your bail’s posted, so you can go.”

  Chance perked up. He closed the blade and returned it to the handkerchief before tucking the bundle back in his pocket.

  Leanna had forgiven him faster than he’d expected. He would have laid money that she’d leave him for the night, if he had any money, that is.

  He tucked the bird into his vest pocket and stood, holding the bars, looking toward the exit, his fist tightening on the cold iron as she appeared.

  His savior was not Leanna, but Ellie Jenkins.

  “Ellie! What are you doing here?” Chance didn’t know if he should be elated or angry. His heart didn’t, either, for it began beating in his eardrums like hoofbeats. A smile spread across his face as he recalled belatedly where he was and his ears began to prickle with shame. Ellie had seen him caged like an animal. His smile died with his joy.

  “She sprung you. Paid cash.” Whitaker turned the lock and swung open the door. “Guess you’re in her custody.”

  Chance stood just inside the open door, unsure now. Ellie said nothing, just regarded him with those deep hazel eyes, masking her emotions completely.

  Chance went for a bravado he didn’t feel.

  “Just can’t go a day without seeing me,” he said, and then realized his mistake as Ellie’s face went pink and she glanced at Glen Whitaker, who was suddenly very busy with his keys. When had he become such an inconsiderate boor?

  He shut his trap one sentence too late.

  Whitaker held the door. Chance handed over the bucket. “You have a good evening,” said Whitaker.

  Chance glanced out at the gray world beyond his window. “Is it still evening?”

  “Nope,” came the answer.

  In the main office, he collected his gun belt and pistols, then followed Ellie out of the jail, succeeding in getting his holster buckled as they reached the street. Had it been Quin or Bowie or Leanna, they would have lit into him the minute they were clear of outsiders, but not Ellie. She kept herself to herself.

  “Well, say something,” he begged.

  She paused to regard him. It was a struggle not to fidget beneath her steady stare.

  “So,” she said. “How did your meeting go with Bowie?”

  He grinned, enjoying her humor, so unexpected and so different from his family.

  “Could have gone better.”

  He could not believe his ears. Was she giggling?

  “Ellie?” The exasperation rang clear in his voice.

  “Well, Chance, it is funny. You
went to see the marshal and ended up in jail. Things between you haven’t changed much in all this time.”

  They hadn’t and he didn’t appreciate her laughing at him. She forced away her smile, trying for a straight face, but her eyes continued to dance merrily and the corners of her mouth tugged upward.

  “How did you know?”

  “Nothing happens in town that folks don’t talk about at the hotel. I went downstairs early as always and the breakfast cook told me.” Ellie’s mirth dissolved and her expression turned sad. “I heard about the window. Annie was so proud of it. I think she chose the horses to represent her brothers, each of you at the 4C, in an ideal that never really existed. Just, perhaps, the way she would have liked it to be.”

  Chance threw up his hands. “Well, now I feel even worse.”

  Ellie roused him from his dark musings with a gentle touch and her quiet voice. “I’m sorry.”

  He nodded. “I told Bowie what you said. Took a while because he kept shutting me down, just like always.” He was so glad to see her safe, but still worried about what Leanna had said. “Ellie, how’d you find out about my ma and Don Fitzgerald?”

  “I just asked my father…” Her words fell off.

  “A question?” he finished, scowling.

  “Oh, Chance, he’s my father.”

  “But you promised.”

  She said nothing to this, but her mouth went small and tight.

  “Ellie I can’t have anything happen to you. I’d never forgive myself.”

  She seemed not to have heard him for she continued on. “I think Ned Womack is having financial trouble. I know Quin tried to buy him out a while back but he refused to sell, for what reason I don’t know. Yesterday, he and Mr. Stokes had a heated discussion outside the general store. Ned refused to settle up his credit there and he’s just back from Dodge. He should have plenty of money from cattle sales.”

  “Ellie.” His voice turned threatening.

  She sighed. “All right. No more questions. But I overheard Ned and Ace. Truly. Now tell me what happened last night.”

  He repeated what Bowie had said and their agreement to continue the appearance of a rift.

  “But why?”