by Montana West
Before he even knew what had happened, Chase had agreed that he wanted to marry Janet and the two brought their case to Mr. and Mrs. Wilson. Just like Janet had said, the two agreed and proposed that the young couple be married as soon as possible.
Despite being one of the prominent families in Cheyenne, the Wilsons insisted on a simple courtroom wedding. As far as Chase could tell at the time, the most effort that any of them put into the whole thing was putting on their clothes for that day, showing up, and placing an announcement in one of the local papers.
The time between their marriage in September and the harvest in October was a blur to Chase. He continued to work the fields same as the other hands, all of whom were unaware that Miss Janet Wilson was now Mrs. Janet McAllister. Mr. Wilson had quietly pulled Chase aside and advised him to keep such a thing under wraps, lest the other hands get jealous of Chase’s good fortune. It came across as sound advice to Chase.
After the crops were harvested in October, things took a strange turn. Mr. Wilson put the farm up for sale and announced that he was moving the family to New York City. Chase wasn’t at all sure about that, but Janet seemed excited about it so he went along with it if it made her happy.
A month later, he found himself in the bustling metropolis that was New York City. Chase stood agog of the sight of it, the rising city on the Hudson River stretching into the sky, belching smoke and steel wherever he looked. The only place he’d seen that could compare was the city of Chicago back in his home state of Illinois.
The month after that, things started to turn for the worse. Despite his curiosity about the city around him, Janet insisted that Chase stay in the house that her father had bought them on the outskirts. Chase wanted to protest, but then he remembered that he was lucky to have a woman like Janet, so he kept his mouth shut and agreed with her.
It would be the fourth month when Chase truly learned the trap he had been pulled into.
Chase had awoken one night to find that Janet was not asleep in the bed that was next to his own. Their marriage as yet remained unconsummated, Janet claiming that she wanted to get them both settled into their own home before risking a child. Chase, too in love to deny Janet anything, accepted this as the truth.
But still, where had she gone so late at night?
His curiosity at her absence piqued, Chase rose from the bed and made his way out into the hall, looking for any sign of his missing wife. At the end of the hallway, he spied a light coming through a door left slightly ajar.
A terrible nausea passed over him. Moving with all of the stealth and silence of a cat, he crept up to the door and cocked his head to listen for any sounds inside.
“How much longer do I have to stay married to him, Daddy?”
Chase’s heart skipped a beat at the sound of Janet’s voice. She was whining, a habit of hers that of which he wasn’t fond, but he’d long ago convinced himself to ignore it.
“Not much longer, my little princess,” came the whining wheeze of Robert Wilson. “The doctors give your grandfather another month or two at best. And when he dies, his entire fortune passes to you, his granddaughter, provided you’re married. After you inherit all of his money, you can do away with that lowly dog and get yourself a proper husband.”
At that moment, Chase was torn between overwhelming sadness and uncontrollable anger. He’d been played for a fool the entire time. Janet didn’t love him and she never did. He was simply a means to an end so that Janet could inherit her grandfather’s money when he died.
And when she had him ‘done away with.’
A wave of fury passed over him. He took a step towards the open door, fists clenched an murderous rage in his heart.
No. The admonition rose from inside him. A voice deep, powerful and good. You were made in love, my son. Do not allow them to drive you towards the ultimate sin.
Chase snuck back to the bedroom and pretended to sleep, even after Janet returned and went into her own bed.
After she and her father had left at some point the following day, Chase quickly set about making preparations. He packed a simple bag with a few odds and ends, threw on the simple suit that Mr. Wilson had purchased him for the marriage, grabbed the official documents that stated that he and Janet had been married, with Mr. and Mrs. Wilson as witnesses, and left the house bound for New York City.
Navigating his way into and through the city was a trial for Chase, not used to being around so many people at once in all directions. After realizing that he didn’t even know Janet’s grandfather’s name, he started asking around if anyone knew of a rich man with the last name of Wilson. A kindly newspaper boy directed him toward an elegantly designed building and said that he was looking for Mr. Frederick Wilson.
Dressed as he was in the tailored if inelegant suit gave Chase no difficulty in gaining access inside the building, but when he arrived on the top floor of the building after climbing up countless stairs, he was more than a little disheveled.
Using the papers he’d brought along, he proved that he was Mr. Frederick Wilson’s grandson-in-law, at least in name, the eyes of the law and God Himself.
Mr. Frederick Wilson was a withered man who still seemed to be drawing on some kind of invigorating spirit. The opulent wood-carved desk he sat behind made him appear much smaller, but when informed that the unannounced visitor was his precious granddaughter’s husband, he seemed to draw on the mysterious strength and pull his body upright.
Chase wasted no time in explaining everything that had happened and what he had heard to Mr. Frederick Wilson, how he had been suckered into marrying Janet just so she could have a husband ready in the event of his death.
Despite appearing frail from age, Mr. Frederick Wilson was absolutely outraged, but not at Chase. He quickly told the young man that he would not suffer such impertinence any longer at the hands of his descendants and their schemes. In the meantime, Chase would remain Mr. Frederick Wilson’s guest.
A few days later, Chase was asked to sign a few papers brought by serious looking but kindly men. A slow reader, he’d worked his way laboriously through the first paragraph, not recognizing the words even as he sounded them out in his mind.
“What is this, sir,” he’d asked.
“An end to this farce, my word to the Almighty,” Mr Wilson said.
Chase nodded, not wanting to think of it or how he’d been duped by Janet, the woman he’d thought he loved. After he’d scrawled his name, Mr. Frederick Wilson informed him that he was now legally divorced from Janet Wilson and that he had covered the costs of everything.
He gave Chase the papers that proved as much, apologized profusely for the way that he had been fooled by the people he was forced to call family, and wished him the best of luck in his future endeavors.
Chase left Mr. Frederick Wilson after only four months of marriage, free to choose any path he wished; but knowing in his heart that all he’d wanted was the lie he’d thought he had.
‘I’ll never let myself be betrayed by love again,’ he’d promised himself as he set back onto the road.
MCNEAL RANCH LAND, Near Cheyenne, Wyoming Territory, August 1885
As Chase finished his story, Leyla sat there in utter silence, trying to piece together everything that she had just been told.
I remember Mama saying that the Wilsons were terrible people, but I didn’t know that they were THAT terrible, she thought aghast. Oh, Chase, your whole life has just been one miserable turn after another, hasn’t it?
Though she currently felt her heart going out to the show rider in front of her, there was one niggling little doubt clawing at the back of her mind, demanding that she pay attention to it and give it voice.
“How?” she asked, as though the entire context could be derived from a single word.
Chase’s head snapped upward and he looked at her with confusion in his eyes. “How what, Leyla?” he asked, caught completely off guard by the question.
Leyla crossed her arms over her chest and let her eyes bore directl
y into Chase’s, searching for even the slightest hint of deception. “How do I know that you’re telling the truth?” she asked. “How do I know this isn’t some massive piece of fiction that you’ve put together just to get me to forgive you?”
Chase looked momentarily stunned by the accusation, even hurt, but he drew in a deep breath before he slowly reached into his pocket and withdrew a wadded pile of papers. They looked as though they’d been through all kinds of weather and wear, but they were still intact. With a trembling hand, Chase extended his arm out to Leyla and allowed her to take hold of the papers.
Leyla’s own hands were trembling as she smoothed the papers out and looked them over. The first one on top was his marriage certificate, issued in September of 1880 in Cheyenne.
Well, that part is definitely true, she thought with a spark of anger aimed toward the Wilson family. Even without the newspaper announcing the marriage, I can recognize Judge Backstrom’s signature.
Moving to the second document, she read it over and felt an odd mixture of relief and sadness course through her body and soul. The document was issued in December of 1880 by a Judge Malloy in the city, county, and state of New York, decreeing that Charles McAllister was legally divorced from Mrs. Janet Wilson McAllister, and that he was under no obligations to give any explanation of himself or pay any debts toward the Wilson family, as decreed by a Mr. Frederick Wilson. Though worn, the paper was signed, stamped, and dated, proving that Chase McAllister was indeed a divorced man.
“Whatever happened to the Wilsons?” she asked, not really caring about their well-being but more about whether they actually got away with their little scheme.
Chase gave a short derisive laugh at the question. “Well, I stayed in New York working odd jobs until March the following year, but I read in the newspaper in February that Mr. Frederick Wilson had died peacefully in his sleep, and that he had willed his entire fortune and any properties he owned to various charities around New York. Were I a betting man, I’d say that stuck real nicely in the craws of Janet Wilson and her parents.”
Leyla answered his snort with one of her own, glad in the knowledge that the Wilsons had had the tables turned on them. But her curiosity refused to leave her alone about a few other points of Chase’s past.
“So, what happened after you left New York?” she queried cautiously. “If I remember correctly, you told me the other day that you’d been show riding for about five years now.”
Despite the fact that he was still under investigation by the beautiful Leyla McNeal, Chase couldn’t help but smile. “It was as I was leaving New York that I took a job as a workman for another travelling show,” he said, fondly recalling the memory of the first step he had taken that had led to his true calling. “I remembered watching the show riders perform their tricks like it was nothing at all. Then, one day, one of the riders—a short but skilled fella by the name of Jesse Lee Shaw—catches me staring and asks if I’d like to learn a few tricks. I told him I was no rider, but he wouldn’t take no for an answer. He put me right up on his horse, gave its backend a smack and watched me ride around clutching for dear life. When the blazing horse finally stopped, he said I’d passed my first lesson: how to not fall off a horse.”
Both Leyla and Chase laughed at the absurdity of the memory, both realizing that it was dangerous to have done but the end result was the same.
Chase sighed fondly as his chuckles subsided. “So, I learned from Jesse and the other show riders,” he continued, “getting better at handling a horse and performing the tricks. When I first started learning how to ride with those folks, that’s when I really started feeling like I’d found some place I belonged.”
“I see,” Leyla said quietly before casting a glance over her shoulder at the rider’s faithful horse, still standing at the tree where he’d been hitched. “When and where did you acquire Cannonball?”
Chase gave another laugh as he recalled the day that he had first met his partner. “I’d say I was travelling with the show for near two years, moving up and down the coast and through the south when one day we do a show at an army fort near Washington. After the show, a few of the cavalry officers, drunk as skunks and still drinking, came up to Jesse and me and said that we were pretty good riders, but there was no way we could tame this one young colt a scouting party had brought in a week prior.”
Leyla’s eyes went wide as she recalled how she’d first met Whirlwind. The event itself had only been a few days prior, but with everything that had happened and all that she had learned, it felt as though it had been a lifetime ago.
“So Jesse and me,” Chase continued, “we let these officers lead us over to the corral where this handsome two-tone horse is still running all around like he’s got a wolf on his heels. I flipped a coin with Jesse over who got to try first and won, so in I went without another thought about it. Of course, the army boys were laughing all the while and saying that if I could ride him, I could keep him.”
The redhead shifted her position and drew her knees up to her chin, her attention focused on Chase’s tale. I haven’t felt like this since before Papa passed, Leyla thought giddily, enjoying the sensation of wonder at being told a fantastic story.
Chase started using his hands in an attempt to better illustrate his narrative. “There I was, standing at the edge of the corral watching this horse move around like lightning. All of a sudden, he stops dead in the center and stares me right in the eye, like he’s sizing me up. Now if he’d of done that when I was first starting to learn, I’d have dang near pissed myself, pardon the expression, but I’d spent two years under the finest show rider who’d taught me nearly everything he knew, and I met that horse’s stare with one of my own.”
In her mind, Leyla could see how she had approached Whirlwind in much the same way as Chase had first approached Cannonball—calm, but determined to succeed.
“Once I finally got close to him and he didn’t buck,” said Chase, “I ran my hand gently along his sides just to keep him calm. The last thing I remember after that was tensing my legs to jump and then the rest is a blur. All I remember was telling myself over and over again to ‘hang on tight’ and ‘keep my balance’. After that, the next thing I knew was the sound of Jesse whoopin’ and hollerin’ and the army boys just standing there slack-jawed at how I’d beaten them at their own game.”
“I’m guessing you named him Cannonball after the fact that you found him at a fort, right?” Leyla asked, a sense of childlike curiosity having gently gripped her.
Chase gave another laugh. “That’s what most folks think when I tell that story, and I’d be lying if I said that weren’t part of the inspiration. But I think the name seemed fitting because to me he’s strong as a cannonball and twice as fast.”
Leyla giggled at the pride that Chase demonstrated in his horse before another question popped into her mind. “What happened to Jesse and the rest of the first show you were part of? Did you leave them?”
Despite the darkness, Leyla caught a flicker of sadness race through Chase’s eyes. “If I could have stayed, I would have,” he began morosely, “but that show went belly up due to money troubles. The owner of that show told us he couldn’t make the show work any longer and that he would tear up our contracts once he paid us what he could. A lot of us show riders went our separate ways after that. Jesse surprised me the most when he said that he was hanging up his show riding spurs and looking into settling down, maybe even opening a ranch. Somehow, I still get the odd telegram from him every now and again. How he manages to send it exactly where I am, I still haven’t figured out, but as far as I know he’s doing well.”
“And then what happened?” Leyla asked, the story and what she sensed was its ending occupying the entirety of her attention.
“Well, for the months that followed the end of that show, I was a wandering show rider, picking up work where I could in competitions and town celebrations,” Chase replied, nostalgia still lacing his tone. “Then one day, about two years a
go, this big and loud fella with a waxed moustache and a top hat tracked me down and offered me the spot of lead show rider in his traveling western-themed show.”
“Professor Monro,” Leyla quipped, the image of the bombastic show proprietor leaping into her mind.
Chase nodded with a smile. “That’s right, Professor Monro. He offered me top billing, a place to hang my hat, a stable of sorts for Cannonball, and a whole new family. I couldn’t say ‘yes’ fast enough and I’ve been with them ever since.”
With the story finished, the gentle silence of the night returned, leaving the two together while still alone with their own thoughts.
For what felt like an eternity and more, neither of them said anything. They simply let the silence continue its reign and just quietly enjoyed the fact that they were there with one another in the protection of the grove of trees.
Without so much as a word, Leyla leaned forward so that she was kneeling on her legs before moving toward Chase. The show rider had no time to react as the redhead pressed her lips to his.
“I am so sorry, Chase,” she breathed, her voice quivering as if she was holding back tears. “I am so sorry that I treated you so poorly without giving you a chance to explain.”
“Leyla, there’s—,” Chase began, but was quickly interrupted as Leyla pressed one of her fingers delicately against his lips, indicating that he hush. “I believe you,” she said. “And I want you to stay here, with me.”
Chapter X: Life Choices
MCNEAL RANCH LAND, Near Cheyenne, Wyoming Territory, August 1885
“Peering around Chase’s side as they rode, Leyla spied the figure of her mother standing outside her bedroom window. “Trouble ahead,” she whispered.
Chase gulped audibly as he, too, spotted Abigail McNeal waiting patiently for the two to arrive. “Think we’d have any chance if I were to spur Cannonball out of here?” he asked, his tone half-joking and half-serious.
Leyla giggled and shook her head. “She’d only send Maggie after us, and then we’d really be in for it,” she replied. “No, she needs to know that you’re not a married man and, more importantly, you’re a good man and that I love you.” She punctuated her statement by squeezing her arms a little tighter around his waist.