Chance Reilly

by Patrick Lindsay

  The Randolph ranch had a very similar setup to our old family ranch, which shouldn’t have been surprising, considering they were side by side, and the geography through the area was pretty consistent. They had an upper and lower pasture, with good water for both, though the lower pasture was a bit smaller than the ranch claimed by the Carson brothers next door. The main difference, as far as I could see, was that the Randolph ranch on the west stopped at a steep set of cliffs leading up into the mountains. It formed a natural barrier on that western side. The lower pasture was fenced on the west, but the high pasture had no need. We worked the western side from lower pasture to upper, then across the northern side, where the grass gave way to scraggly pine trees and ended at the rocky cliff sides that formed the northern edge of the property. Jim explained that they ran about 200 head of cattle.

  We came to the eastern property line, bordering the Carson property, and stopped short at a barbed wire fence that ran across the property line up to the point where the steep rise in elevation made it unnecessary to keep the cattle from straying across the line. We reined in and I stared at the barbed wire, trying to remember if it had been there fifteen years ago. Jim followed my glance. “It wasn’t there when you and your dad had that ranch,” he said. I nodded. He hesitated, seeming to weigh a decision in his mind.

  “I’ve been missing some cows,” he said finally. “Just a few, now and then, but it’s been pretty steady for several years now. I put the fence in about 5 years ago, and I’m missing fewer than I was before, but I’m still coming up short by a number of cows every year. We make a decent living from the ranch, and we have the beef and Kate’s garden for most of our food, but I can’t afford to lose them.” His gaze wandered to the neighboring pasture across the fence. “I’m not making any accusations I can’t prove, and I’m not asking you to take any foolish chances. But if you see something you think I need to know about, I’m hoping you’ll tell me.” I nodded. “Of course.” I dismounted and walked over to a section of the fence that had caught my eye. The strands of wire had been mended, and I could see the newer sections of wire twisted around the old to close up the former break in the wire. I twisted it a little in my hand to see if it looked like the wire had been cut or had simply snapped from the elements and time. I couldn’t tell for sure. Jim watched me silently until I walked back to Archie and mounted up. We turned back toward the ranch house.

  We rode in silence for a couple minutes until Jim cleared his throated and reined in his horse. “What I told you about the missing cows,” he said. I nodded. “I’d appreciate it if you say nothing to Red about it.” I looked over at him, but he was looking down toward the lower pasture and didn’t meet my eyes. I nodded. “Of course.” I turned Archie to continue the ride back to the house, but Jim hadn’t moved, and I could see he had something else on his mind. He twisted the reins in his hand for a minute, and then looked over at me. “You would find this out at dinner tonight, anyway. The youngest of the Carson brothers, name of Yates. He comes callin’ on Kate every now and then, has dinner with us sometimes. Kate is a little sweet on him.” He fell silent for a minute and I waited. “Not much to choose from in such a small town.” His voice trailed away, but I could see the worry in his eyes. “Anyway,” he said after a minute, “I haven’t talked to Kate about it either, because of her seeing Yates sometimes.” He gathered up the reins and started back toward the house.

  I gave Archie a little slap on the rump and caught up. “I won’t say anything either,” I told him. He glanced over and nodded. “Where your history around here is concerned, that’s between us, as far as I’m concerned,” he told me. “A man’s history is his own business. You might want to know, though, that I’m not the only one who figured it out.” “Sam?” I asked. “Right,” he said. “It took him a few days, but he figured it out too. If you need a friend, you can count on Sam. It’s a good thing to know.” We rode on down to the house and turned the horses in to the corral. Jim nodded toward the bunkhouse. “I’ll let you finish getting settled in. We generally eat supper around six o’clock.”

  When I entered the bunkhouse, Red was laying on the bunk on the far side of the room. He eyed me with no sign of friendliness when I stepped in. I nodded and began unpacking the few items I had. “Where’d you go?” I glanced around and caught his unblinking stare. “Randolph just showed me around the property,” I said, turning around and pushing my knapsack under the bunk. When I turned back, he dropped his stare to the Colt I had strapped on my hip. “You any good with that thing?” I shrugged. “I know how to use it.” I held his stare until he could see he wouldn’t get any more answer than that. Eventually he lay back on the bunk, put his hands behind his head and looked at the ceiling. “He never said anything to me about hiring another hand,” he said, almost to himself. I decided the air was better outside, and went over to the corral to brush Archie until the triangle bell on the porch of the ranch house sounded dinner.

  As I climbed the steps to the front porch, I noticed a horse tied to the railing. I skirted around to check the brand: CCC. I knew it must be the youngest Carson brother that Jim Randolph had mentioned. I approached the front door, which stood partially open, and raised my hand to knock when Kate saw me. “Chance,” she said, “no need to knock when you’re coming for supper. Just come on in.” She turned toward a young man who was leaning against the wall. He was a few years younger than me, slightly shorter and a little thinner, sandy hair running a little bit long, wearing a slightly hostile expression. “This is Yates Carson,” she said. “He’s a friend.” He shook my hand but said nothing. “You know Red,” Kate continued. She took my arm. “Let me give you a tour of the house. It’s a short tour.” As we passed Yates Carson, I saw that his expression had turned more than a little bit hostile. I have to say I enjoyed that.

  We passed a room on our left just as Jim Randolph was coming out of it. “This is Dad’s room,” she said, pointing. Jim smiled and patted me on the shoulder as we continued on. She pushed open another door. “This is my room.” I stood in the doorway and looked in. There was a four poster bed and a dresser, with a vase of fresh wild flowers on the dresser. As I started to turn away, I noticed a couple paintings on the wall. “Oh,” I said as I looked at the paintings. “Do you mind if I take a closer look?” She smiled. “Go ahead.” As I walked over to look at them, it seemed to me they were paintings of the high pasture of the ranch, maybe in the springtime, judging by the wildflowers. “I painted them.” She had come up behind me. I looked at the paintings a moment longer, and then turned back around. “They’re so peaceful,” I said. The smile remained intact on her face. “That’s what I was trying for,” she said. We finished the tour with the kitchen, which smelled wonderful, and a brief glance at the back patio. We turned back into the kitchen, and I wondered about Kate’s mother. There had been no mention of her, and I saw no sign of there being another woman in the house. I glanced around one more time, and she guessed what I was wondering about. “My mom isn’t here anymore. The West didn’t suit her, at least not the ranch country of the West. One day she left us and took the stage to San Francisco. She might still be there, I’m not sure. Dad and I have always loved it here.” “You’re lucky to have him,” I told her. “He’s a good man.” She nodded. “What about your parents?” I heard the footsteps of the others headed toward the kitchen. “It’s a really long story,” I said. “Can I tell you another time?” She nodded again, and turned to seat everyone for dinner.

  We sat around an old table in the kitchen for dinner, with Jim at the head of the table, Yates and Kate were seated on one side, me at the other end to Kate’s right, with Red on the side opposite Yates and Kate. We helped ourselves to roast beef from the ranch, vegetables grown in Kate’s garden, and mashed potatoes. I would have enjoyed it immensely, except for the conversation. Yates, I had to admit, was a very entertaining conversationalist. He seemed to have an endless supply of funny stories, half of which I suspected were untrue, and a lot of quick jokes
and quips. I could tell that Kate was enjoying his company, and I began to feel pretty uncomfortable. Jim and I chipped in a few sentences only once in a while, and Red sat in complete silence.

  Eventually, Carson turned his sights on me. It was instant dislike between us, clearly. “So,” he began, “Jim tells me you came here from New York. You think you have any skills for helping out on a ranch?” That came out with a bit of a smirk. “Sure,” I said. “I’ve worked on a ranch before.” That took him by surprise, a little. “Where?” “Not too far from here,” I said a bit evasively. “I came west with my parents when I was little, but didn’t get to stay here when I got a little older.” “Near here? Where? Why did you go to New York?” I looked up at him, debating how much to tell him. Jim Randolph leaned in. “Yates,” he said, “at my table a man is free to talk about his past as much as he wants to, and no more.” Yates swung around to look at Randolph, didn’t like the look he saw, and dropped his next question.

  Eventually, Carson decided to return to the attack, only a little more subtly. “Well,” he said after a while, “you can ride and herd cattle?” I nodded and said nothing else. A smirk formed on his lips. “Anything else that might be useful?” I put down my fork and stared at him. An idea formed in my mind. It was a longshot, but I decided to give it a try. “Sure” I said. “I can repair fence over on that east side pasture if I need to.” His gaze was on his plate when I said it, but his head snapped up quickly. Even Red seemed to do a double-take. Yates looked at me through narrowed eyes, his antagonism evident in his look. Eventually he became aware of Kate, looking at him with unspoken questions in her eyes. Yates dropped his gaze back to his plate and he went back to work on finishing his dinner.

  The rest of the meal could only be described as uncomfortable, although Jim didn’t seem bothered down on his end. Kate made a few efforts at restarting the conversation, but Carson had retreated into an ugly silence. Finally, he and Red excused themselves at about the same time and left. I took my turn at trying to restart the conversation, and father and daughter both responded a bit, but I eventually gave it up. I couldn’t tell if Kate was angry at me or simply perplexed by the earlier exchange. I complimented her on the meal and let myself out.

  As I went down the path toward the bunk house, I became aware of a low conversation around the side of the ranch house. I turned and walked noiselessly to the corner of the house and looked carefully around the corner. Yates Carson was mounted on his horse, and had moved only a few yards toward the trail back to his ranch. Red was standing next to his horse, and they were talking in low tones. I turned quietly and continued over to the bunk house. Obviously there was more going on there than met the eye. I had some things to think about.

  Chapter 6

  Kate Randolph awakened suddenly. She glanced toward the window; saw that there was only a little gray light filtering in, so it was early. It seemed exceptionally quiet outside. She lay back in the bed and looked up at the fabric covering her four poster bed and wondered why she had awakened so early. Something about last night was troubling her, and she was having trouble pinpointing the source of her worries. She began to replay the evening in her head.

  Oh yes… it was coming back to her now. Chance had made a comment about repairing the eastern fence, and it had obviously touched a nerve with Yates and maybe Red as well. She remembered glancing over at her father; his face had been expressionless. So he hadn’t been surprised by it. Beyond that she hadn’t been able to tell what he was thinking. Chance’s comment had pretty much implied that the Carsons were stealing Randolph cattle. Was that possible? She thought of what she knew about Yates. He was witty and entertaining, and she had found that she enjoyed his company. At times he seemed frivolous, and didn’t seem to show much interest in hard work or in building his ranch. That had caused her to shy away when he talked of marriage. She knew her father would be angry if he knew that Yates had proposed. She had decided against the marriage, but didn’t want the companionship and enjoyable times to end.

  She thought of the older Carson brothers. The middle brother, Caleb, seemed to have a quick temper and didn’t show her much respect when she was around. The oldest brother, Jack, was just evil, in her opinion. He was said to have killed several men in gunfights. She knew she could never marry into that family. Still, could Yates have been stealing cattle? She couldn’t really picture it. The older brothers, maybe, but she didn’t think Yates was capable of it. What did Chance really know about this? Or her father? Would either of them tell her?

  She got up and walked to the window. The sky was cloudy and it would be a little cold in the early morning, but she had to know if Yates could be involved in stealing cattle. The idea came to her to dress and ride up to the high pasture, check the fence, and she what she could find on her own. She decided quickly to do so, dressed, and left a note for her father, telling him she had gone on an early morning ride.

  In the corral she buttoned up her coat against morning chill of the late spring, saddled her horse, a buckskin mare, and rode out. She glanced at the cattle as she rode through the lower pasture. In a few weeks, as the temperatures rose, they could be moved to the high pasture, where they would find abundant new lush grass and begin to really fatten up. She reached the eastern edge of the lower pasture and took the path to climb to the high pasture.

  The morning light was still dim as Kate rode into the high pasture, and there was a bit of morning fog. She rode to the barb wire fence and leaned a bit from the saddle as she looked for any sign of wire that had been cut and repaired. She saw nothing in the first several yards, and it dawned on her that if there had been any cattle stolen, it was likely that it would have happened farther up the line, where there was less chance of being seen. She rode along to the north for perhaps a quarter of a mile, scanning the upper strand of the wire as she went. She began to hear a few rumbles of thunder and anxiously scanned the skies overhead. Violent storms could move in quickly sometimes. She could only hope this wasn’t one of those times.

  She glanced toward the north, peering through the fog in the dim morning light, then suddenly reined in her horse. At first she doubted her own eyes, but it gradually became clear there were two men standing by the fence, one on each side. Their horses were cropping grass nearby. A few cattle were grazing to one side, four to be exact, on the Randolph property. Kate’s glance veered back to the two men at the fence. The posture and shape of the man on her side of the fence was undoubtedly Red. She looked to the other side of the fence, and her heart sunk as she realized it was Yates. She sat indecisively for a moment, and then her horse, sensing the presence of the other two horses, whinnied. Both men whirled and saw her. Yates appeared to be holding a metallic instrument of some kind in his hand.

  The shock was gradually being replaced by anger as she realized these two were, in fact, stealing Randolph cattle. She had a moment of indecision, but quickly realized that retreat wasn’t an option. She had been seen, and they started to advance toward her. She spurred her horse forward. “So, it’s true” she said, riding up to within a few feet of them. “You are cattle thieves. How long?” Her gaze shifted to Yates, who was placing the snips back inside his jacket. “The whole time you’ve been coming to see me, talking about marriage, have you been stealing my cows that whole time?” She looked back at Red. “How about you? Have you been taking our cows the whole time you’ve been taking our money?” The two exchanged glances, then Yates looked at her, his eyes narrowed in anger, and she sensed menace in his face. Her anger began to subside and she felt fear for the first time.

  She looked at Yates, measured his expression, and realized she had never truly seen what he was like. She gathered the reins and began to back her horse. Yates turned to Red. “Deal with it” he said, and then he turned, mounted his horse, and rode away. Kate tore her gaze from Yates back to Red and saw the gun in his hand. She stopped her horse and watched the gun come level, then closed her eyes and waited for the inevitable. When no shot came after
several seconds, she opened her eyes. Red was still holding the gun on her, but he was looking at the ground. She realized, with a glimmer of hope, that he might not be prepared to do this. “You stole some cows” she said. “That doesn’t make you a murderer.”

  Red made his decision. He dropped the barrel of the gun to point at the ground directly in front of the horse and fired as he turned and galloped away. Kate’s horse reared immediately, then came down and gathered herself as she began to plunge and run. Kate instinctively yanked both feet from the stirrups and prepared to throw herself off. Her left foot came free, but her right foot was only partially dislodged. She clung to the reins and saddle horn as her horse began to gallop. She made one more effort to dislodge her foot as she was thrown clear. She felt a sharp pain in her right ankle but her foot came free, throwing her to the ground as her horse disappeared from sight. Her breath was knocked out of her when she landed, and she lay where she had fallen, recovering her breath. A bolt of lightning flashed, followed by thunder and the rain came immediately after, falling in sheets within a minute or two.

  Kate lay on the ground, shivering in the morning cold after she was drenched almost immediately by the thunderstorm. She looked around for cover from the rain, but there was none to be found around her in the pasture. She looked to the north. The closest cover would be in the trees bordering the pasture on the north. She tried to stand and eventually did struggle to her feet. She took one step with her left foot, but when she tried to step out with the right foot, it buckled and she fell to the ground. The pain was all but unbearable, and clearly the ankle wouldn’t support her weight. She could see that it had swollen considerably already. She decided to crawl to the trees, if she could make it. The movement might at least bring the shivering under control. After progressing several yards, she slumped to the ground to rest. The rain fell on her relentlessly and she began to shiver again.