Linda Castle

by The Return of Chase Cordell

  “I am Colonel Montgomery Homstock.” The man dipped his head, never taking his eyes off Chase’s face.

  Homstock. The same name as the murdered man. A chill of dread snaked its way up Chase’s back.

  “I won’t keep you from your supper, Major Cordell, but I did want to get a look at you.” He stepped near the bars and trained his wintry gaze on Chase’s face.

  “I hope I’m not a disappointment.”

  The colonel’s lips curled into a smile that never touched his eyes. “I hope you can maintain that bravado when your trial begins.”

  “Aren’t those Union guns I heard outside of Mainfield?” Chase goaded with a lift of his brows. “Are you so sure you have the time to bother with the formality of a trial? Why not just shoot me now and drop the pretense of justice?”

  The smile slipped for a moment, but the colonel recovered quickly. “The Northern troops won’t be able to help you, Major. I am presently making arrangements with the local officials to hold your trial immediately. No matter how the war ends, I’ll see you hang. Sleep well, Major, if you can.”

  With that said, Colonel Homstock turned on his boot heel and left. Chase listened to the steady barrage of cannon shot and knew he would not be able to rest, but he didn’t mind. He was determined to relive his past and he hoped, if he scrutinized each memory he would find the answers he needed to defend himself. With a new feeling of purpose, he allowed his thoughts to return to 1862….

  After Mayor Kerney and the other hooded men rode off, Chase let the gelding meander through the tall grass and graze at his leisure. He pondered the things he had heard and wondered how he had lived around the men and never discerned their activities. It was amazing to him. The merchants he saw had no political loyalties. They were raiding with one purpose in mind, and that purpose was to bring back loot—blood money—to line their own pockets.

  He stopped and rested against the trunk of an ancient oak while he watched the summer moon rise high above the treetops. It seemed grotesque to think of men profiting from the conflict of ideals between the North and the South.

  A branch snapped nearby. Chase pulled the Colt from his waistband and peered into the darkness. He had no intention of having his mount stolen by a wandering horseless deserter, whichever side he had been on.

  “Identify yourself,” Chase demanded. The crunching footsteps abruptly halted. The man was definitely walking, and Chase tightened his grip on his horse’s reins.

  “Chase? Is that you?” Ira Goten appeared from within a tangled mass of vines and branches. The moonlight gave his lean face a ghoulish appearance.

  After a moment of surprise, Chase stuck his gun back in his pants. “Ira, what are you doing out here on foot?”

  Ira’s eyes flicked away. His Adam’s apple bobbed while he swallowed hard. Whatever Ira was about to tell Chase, it was bound to be a lie.

  “I, uh, got throwed.”

  The hair on Chase’s neck stood on end. The night became charged with something—danger, deceit, or both, Chase wasn’t sure which. Everyone who lived within a hundred miles of Mainfield knew that Ira had been thrown only once in his life. At the time he had been too young to shave, and drunk as a skunk on elderberry wine. He had not been thrown tonight, and Chase knew it.

  “Do you need a ride into town?” Chase nodded at his big bay, indicating they could ride double, if need be. “Or do you want to go to Cordellane? I’ll loan you a horse.” He decided to play along with the deception.

  “Naw, but I’d be obliged if you’d walk a ways with me, back toward town.” Ira shot a glance down the dark trail toward Cordellane.

  No man walked if he could ride, even double, and Chase was almost sure Ira had been going in the opposite direction, toward Cordellane, not to Mainfield as he now indicated was his destination. Chase kept his suspicions to himself and allowed Ira to set the pace along the path.

  “What are you doing out here, Chase?”

  The question was asked mildly enough, but Chase sensed a strange tension in Ira. The electric zing of mistrust and suspicion arced between them.

  “I was just riding,” Chase said.

  “Oh.” Ira was silent for a moment but Chase could almost hear the cogs inside his head spinning, digesting the information, weighing the words for truth or falsehood. “Come out here often, do you, Chase?”

  With each passing minute, Chase felt what the coon must feel when being trailed by a pack of hounds. Ira Goten was feeling Chase out, probing him. But why?

  “I’ve always liked the old gristmill road. You can see all kinds of interesting things along the river, particularly in the moonlight.” Chase decided to toss a little bait out himself and see what he could snag with it.

  Ira’s head snapped around. For a moment Chase thought he was going to say something, then his teeth flashed in the pale moonlight and he stopped walking.

  “How about a drink, Chase?” Ira reached into his boot top and pulled out a bottle. Before he had his pants tucked back in, Chase saw the gleam of a wicked-looking blade concealed inside the boot. Ira stood up and uncorked the whiskey and took a long pull, then he gave it to Chase. Even while he tipped the bottle to his lips, he watched Ira.

  “Go ahead, have another,” Ira coaxed.

  Chase made a big show of wiping his shirtsleeve across his mouth after he barely touched the liquor to his lips. “If I didn’t know better, Ira, I’d swear you were trying to get me drunk.”

  Ira looked as if he had been walloped on the side of the head.

  “What a thing to say, Chase. I was just being neighborly.” He took back the bottle and recorked it. Then he slipped it back inside his boot before he resumed walking toward Mainfield.

  When they reached a small, sheltered clearing, Ira began to cast wary glances at the surrounding trees. It set Chase’s teeth on edge and he found himself squinting at the long shadows. He saw the man first, clinging to the shadows like a weasel, his body a darker shade of gray in the night. Chase froze in his tracks and his hand went instinctively to the butt of the Colt. Ira followed his line of vision. Chase sensed the very moment Ira saw the man concealed in the branches.

  “Show yourself.” Ira bent and deftly slid the knife from his boot.

  A form began to move within the trees. Chase drew the gun from his waistband. When the man emerged, his hands were held up and he had no weapon they could see.

  “Take it easy, gentlemen.” The stranger’s words were tinged with a soft Southern slur. Chase thought he might be a deserter, until he got a better look at his clothes. They were of good cut and quality and the fellow wore them in a way that made Chase doubt he’d ever taken an order in his life.

  “Who are you?” Chase pointed the gun at the level of the man’s belly.

  “Since you are holding the gun, I guess I will have to oblige you by answering.” An assessing gaze flicked from Chase to Ira and back again. “I am Alfred Homstock. Do you intend to shoot me now, or may I know your names first?”

  “Cordell,” Chase said while he pondered the unlikely situation. It was too much of a coincidence, finding two men afoot in the woods at night. “What’s your business here?”

  “I’ve come to meet someone.” The man looked Chase straight in the face and smiled warmly. He slowly put his arms down at his sides and relaxed.

  “Meet somebody? Who?” Chase continued to hold the gun steady.

  “You, Mr. Cordell,” the man said with complete conviction.

  “Careful, Chase.” Ira’s warning whisper came from beside him.

  Obviously the man was lying through his teeth. Chase was not meeting anybody, certainly not in the sheltered clearing.

  “What do you mean you were supposed to meet me?” His grip on the Colt tightened.

  “I am the man your contact told you about.” Homstock’s fingers went to his waist, where he pulled aside his coat and lifted the bottom edge of his brocade vest. He began to unfasten a money belt. “I have gold, lots of gold. It can be yours. Is this o
ne of the men who work the route?” Homstock glanced at Ira with an eager gleam in his eyes.

  Chase didn’t know anything about gold, or routes. Chase clamped his jaws shut while his mind went to his grandfather. Was it possible the craziness had affected his grandfather so much that he had become embroiled in some scheme involving gold?

  Homstock held the money belt with his right hand and opened it up with the other. Pale moonlight glinted on gold coins.

  “See, I have brought more than enough. Now will you show me the way to the Underground Railroad?”

  It happened so fast, it was a blur of sound and sight. Ira’s arm shot out and a zing sliced the night air. There was a wooden thunk that echoed when Ira’s knife embedded itself in the trunk of a tree.

  “Get down, Chase!” Ira called out.

  An instant later a sharp crack and a blue spark sent a ribbon of fire across the top of Chase’s gun hand. He grated his teeth against the pain and tried to maintain his weakening grip on the Colt. The shot had come from a double-shot derringer concealed in the money belt Homstock still held in one hand. Ira pounced on the man and gold coins rained out of the belt when Homstock hit the ground. The two men struggled for control of the derringer.

  Chase looked at his hand. The bullet had done little damage, thank God, even though he was bleeding. He focused on the men grunting and rolling on the ground, but he couldn’t risk a shot in the dark.

  Suddenly another shot illuminated the pair on the ground. Both men stilled for a moment, then Homstock staggered to his feet and scooped up the money belt. Several more coins fell from it before he draped it over one arm.

  “Damn you, Cordell, how did you find out it was a trap?” His labored breathing was harsh. Chase could see a dark stain spreading on Homstock’s shoulder where he had been shot with his own gun. “How did you know I had been sent to kill you?”

  “He didn’t. An informant told me you would be coming to kill the men you found along the route at each meeting place,” Ira said. “I didn’t know until now it was Cordell you were meeting,” Ira said.

  Chase felt his grip on the Colt slipping. None of what Ira and Homstock were saying made any sense to him.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Homstock declared with a sneer. “By now my superiors know the names of everyone involved. It won’t be long until they send enough men to destroy you all for good.”

  “No, they won’t. They never got the information. The man you sent back won’t be reporting anything. At least not in this life.” Ira’s voice was deadly. Chase was surprised to see he was pointing the derringer at Homstock. “I found him first.”

  Homstock roared and swung the money belt. The heavy leather pouch full of gold caught Chase across the side of the head. Sparks of light burst behind his eyes and he lost his shaky grip on the Colt.

  “You spying Confederate son of—” Ira pulled the trigger on the derringer he had taken from Homstock, but it clicked harmlessly on empty chambers.

  Chase sagged to his knees, stunned by the blow from the money belt, while the sound of his stolen horse’s hooves echoed through the night.

  Chapter Twenty

  The returning memory continued to flow like an untamed river….

  “Chase, are you all right?” Ira helped him to his feet.

  “I’ll be fine.” Chase was still stunned, but he angrily jerked his arm out of Ira’s hand and tried to blink back the stars dancing in his head. “What the devil is going on?”

  Ira looked at him speculatively for a moment. “You really don’t know, do you? I thought it was an act, but you weren’t meeting Homstock here in the usual place, were you?”

  “Of course I wasn’t meeting Homstock, and I don’t know anything about this place. What the hell was he talking about?” Chase picked up his Colt with his good hand and stuck it inside his waistband.

  “You really were just riding through these woods.” It was more a statement than a question. Ira bent down and scooped up the fallen gold coins from the loamy earth. He shoved them deep into his trouser pockets before he yanked his knife from the tree trunk where he had embedded it in his attempt to kill Homstock.

  “Yes, I was.” Chase’s voice resonated with suppressed anger. “What were you doing? That story about getting thrown and having to walk was a damned lie and I know it.”

  “I was sent here to save the life of whoever Homstock met. Then I was supposed to kill Homstock, quietly. He’s a Confederate spy, an assassin. If Homstock was telling us the truth, then I was supposed to save a man named Cordell. I thought it was you, but now I realize it wasn’t. Here in this clearing, information—and people—-are met by Union troops or private escort.”

  Chase cursed under his breath. “I don’t know anything of what you are talking about.”

  “I’m talking about the Underground Railroad. And assuming that Homstock had no reason to lie, he was meeting a man named Cordell. Since there is only one other Cordell, besides you, then I guess we both know who he was supposed to meet.”

  Chase swallowed hard. He followed Ira’s line of thinking even though logic forced him to resist the thought. “You don’t seriously believe my grandfather is capable of such deceit.”

  “I don’t know what to think, but that’s not important. Homstock is a Southern spy and he is surely on his way to report to his superiors. Once he reaches them, every Southern sympathizer in Texas will be hunting for anyone named Cordell, starting with you and your grandfather.”

  The truth of Ira’s words settled on Chase. He glared at Ira. Anger and concern over his grandfather dissolved the small measure of patience he had left. “I take it you are involved with the Railroad?”

  “Yes,” Ira admitted reluctantly.

  “Do you know who the others are, the ones Homstock was sent to kill, I mean?”

  Ira shook his head. “No. We try not to know in case one of us is discovered. It’s a whole lot easier to keep a secret if only one or two people know it in the first place. All these years I’ve been working, I never knew your grandfather was involved. Cagey old fox, he had me fooled.”

  Chase ignored the comment and focused on the problem at hand. “Do you know where Homstock was headed? Which road he would take?”

  “Since he learned the last spy was killed, I’m sure he’s heading back to deliver this information firsthand. I’ve heard talk about Ferrin County. Strong Southern ties—rumors. He might’ve gone that way. Or maybe just straight east into Louisiana and the closest Southern army he can find.”

  Chase looked up at the moonlit sky and cursed under his breath. Then he started walking.

  “Where are you going?” Ira fell into step beside Chase.

  “To Cordellane for another horse. I’ve got to stop Homstock before he manages to talk.”

  Ira kept pace beside Chase. “Will you loan me a horse and a gun? I was supposed to have stopped the spy before he got this far.” Ira’s voice was thick with guilt and regret.

  Now Chase understood why Ira had been alone in the woods—he was an executioner waiting for his victim.

  Ira stuffed the Colt Chase loaned him into his belt before he leapt into the saddle. The rangy black mare snorted and pawed, anxious to be off. She was Captain Cordell’s favorite mount, fast and surefooted as a goat. Chase wondered where the old man was. He uttered a silent prayer that he was someplace safe, while his mind struggled to deny that his grandfather was not crazy.

  The moon was high overhead and brightly illuminated the woods around Cordellane when Chase mounted a fresh horse. If Homstock left any sign of a trail at all, they should be able to find it in the glow of moonlight.

  “I’ll go south first, just in case he doubled back on us,” Ira told Chase.

  “Fine. I’m heading straight to Ferrin County.” Chase gathered the reins of the deep-chested roan stallion in his uninjured left hand.

  “Chase, if anybody ever asks you about tonight, we never saw each other. You may not have been involved before, but now you are. Lives depend o
n your silence. Agreed?”

  “Agreed. I won’t speak of this night. You can trust me to keep your secret, Ira, to the grave if necessary. But I have to ask something of you, as well.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “If you are right about my grandfather—and I’m not saying you are—you must promise to keep the secret. If he has gone to all this trouble…” His words trailed off.

  “I understand,” Ira said.

  The words of the two-year-old vow hung in his mind while Chase paced on the end of his chain inside the tiny cell. He felt like a tethered animal. Instead of his memory setting him free, it had shackled him with bonds stronger than mere iron. His own honor and vow of silence held him prisoner now. He forced himself to remember the rest of what happened….

  The big roan settled into a steady, rocking gallop. Chase had not taken the time to bandage his hand, but he had stuck a bottle of whiskey inside his saddlebag. He swiveled around and reached for it without allowing the stud to slacken his pace.

  Chase took a long drink and then poured some whiskey over his hand. A goodly portion ended up on his shirt, coat and the reins he held, but some of the liquid reached the wound. It burned like being scorched by live embers, but Chase did not want to risk infection from a dirty wound.

  By moonlight, Chase followed the straightest path to Ferrin County. Fortunately for Chase, the short road was also the most traveled and he hoped that Homstock would take the longer but more sheltered trail. It would give him badly needed time. He came upon an itinerant peddler who had built his meager camp beside the road. With the glow of the camp fire lighting his face, the old man told Chase someone sounding like Homstock had asked directions to the Presbyterian church in Ferrin County not more than an hour earlier. Chase plunged cross country, driving the horse harder upon hearing he was definitely on the right trail. He could reach Ferrin County ahead of Homstock. While he rode, he concentrated on everything he had learned this night.